Richard Hunt: Pressure
This major survey traces Hunt’s artistic evolution from early experiments with welded metal and found materials to monumental works in bronze and stainless steel. Known for his innovative approach to sculpture—often described as “drawing in space”—Hunt’s works combine abstraction with a sense of motion, organic form, and historical resonance. The exhibition contextualizes Hunt’s practice within modernist sculpture and highlights his deep engagement with themes of resilience, cultural heritage, and public memory.
Richard Hunt: Pressure is the first posthumous U.S. institutional survey of the celebrated American sculptor Richard Hunt (1935–2023), presented at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. The exhibition opened on December 2, 2025, and runs through March 29, 2026. It brings together approximately twenty-five works spanning more than five decades of Hunt’s practice, from the 1950s through the 2010s, showcasing his experimentations with form, scale, and materiality. Visitors will encounter large bronzes and stainless-steel sculptures alongside more intimate works and maquettes that reflect Hunt’s fluid, abstract sculptural language and his engagement with broad historical themes, including the Civil Rights movement and social justice in America.
Exhibition Description
The show features seminal pieces such as Opposed Linear Forms (1961) and Linear Peregrination (1962), which illustrate Hunt’s early explorations of line and spatial extension, as well as Hero’s Head (1956), a welded steel work reflecting on the murder of Emmett Till near the artist’s Chicago neighborhood. Other significant works include I Have Been to the Mountain (1977), a maquette referencing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final speech, and models for ambitious public commissions like Freedmen’s Column (1989) and the unrealized Middle Passage Monument (1987), which speak to collective historical memory. Through these varied works, the exhibition underscores Hunt’s mastery of metal, his command of abstraction, and the enduring relevance of his artistic vision.
