Richard Hawkins (artist)

Richard Hawkins (born 1961 in Mexia, Texas) is an American artist.[1] He lives and works in Los Angeles.[1] His works are held by museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art,[2][1] the Museum of Modern Art,[3] and the Art Institute of Chicago.[4]

He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas, Austin in 1984 and a Master of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts) in 1988.[5][6] After graduating from Cal Arts, Hawkins worked for a time as a short story writer.[7] Hawkins' art largely consists of sculpture and collage.[8] His works combine "ubiquitous pop-culture images and objects with arcane references and quotes"; frequent themes include "current celebrities, literary lions of yesteryear, haunted houses, Asian sex tourism, Greek and Roman statuary and the American Indian experience".[7] He is gay, and his sexuality also informs his artwork.[7][8] According to art historian Richard Meyer, Hawkins' "mash-up [of] avant-garde, kitsch and kink", including the use of traditionally feminine consumer items, "challenge[s] us to rethink our hierarchies of value and visual pleasure."[7]

Hawkins was instrumental in reviving the work of the late artist Tony Greene, including co-curating (with Catherine Opie) an exhibition of Greene's work that was included in the 2014 Whitney Biennial exhibition in New York.[9]