SUMMARY

Richard H. Alpert is an accomplished multi-media artist from San Francisco who has actively explored expression through sculpture, painting, drawing, film, and performance since the 1970s.  He has exhibited and is in collections throughout the country.  “Giant Mic.” is representative of a classic RCA microphone widely used by people such as Larry King and David Letterman, and the sculpture points to how we communicate as a culture plus how far we continue to evolve technologically.  He created this sculpture by hand application of resin on a rotating custom form and then using automobile paint to create the surface details.

ABOUT THE SCULPTURE

Giant Mic. pays homage to the iconic RCA 77-D microphone, famously used by legends such as Larry King, David Letterman, and Dick Clark during the Golden Age of Broadcasting. It is a second-generation sculpture initially designed and constructed to represent a radio station where Richard was on the board of directors. He used expanded polystyrene (EPS) to form the capsule shape and coated it with a polyurethane resin called Styroplast®, and then he applied acrylic automotive paint for the visual surface details. Aluminum and steel were used to form the cradle and the base. He also attached 300 circular stickers by hand.

Giant Mic. stands as a symbol for the advances of technology in communication. Richard used the scale of this sculpture to emphasize the importance that this aspect of the human experience has had globally on our lives.

ABOUT THE SCULPTOR

Richard H. Alpert is an American sculptor, abstract filmmaker, and performance artist born in New York City in 1947, currently residing in northern California. He has been creating multi-media art since the 1970s, and he is the recipient of the 1979-1980 National Endowment for the Arts Artist’s Fellowship Grant.

His exhibitions include venues throughout the USA, Europe, and Japan, including the Petzel Gallery, NYC; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA; Museum of Conceptual Art, San Francisco, CA; the Museum of Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, CA; The American Center in Paris, France; and Kermin Prefecture Hall in Tokyo, Japan.

In 1986, Richard survived an explosion and fire that killed nine people in San Francisco, consuming his studio and most of his artwork. He rebuilt from there and has expanded his portfolio of creative endeavors ever since. In 2019, Alpert’s short film AVE variation #7 received awards in numerous film festivals. Most recently, he maintains a series of small sculptures entitled “Primary Traces”. Six of the sculptures are currently being exhibited at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. His work is represented by the Saatchi Gallery, London, UK.