Richard Berger
b. 1944, Los Angeles - d. 2015, San Francisco
My Couch, 1976
Aluminum, thread, and lead
Collection of Carol Bove and Carson Terry
Here, thousands of silver beads suspended on thread trace the ghostly outline of a living room sofa. Bove first encountered this installation during a school trip to the Berkeley Art Museum when she was around eight years old. The idea that such an ordinary and familiar subject could be transfigured into a magical presence mesmerized her. Decades later, she discovered that the sculpture was created by the Bay Area artist and teacher Richard Berger in 1976. After tracking down and acquiring the work, she gradually restored it. My Couch is one of a group of compositions by Berger made from threaded lead fishing weights—works that he referred to as “descriptions” of their corresponding objects.
On a lower level of the rotunda, Bove has installed an upholstered sofa that she reverse engineered from this ethereal form, matching Berger’s illusory floating couch with a physical counterpart on which visitors are invited to sit and rest.