Steve Roden joined a punk rock band when he was in his teens, but he eventually became an artist who worked across painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, video, music, and sound.
According to the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art which has an exhibit of his work titled “Steve Roden: Wandering” on view through May 26, Roden described himself as a ragpicker, someone who builds meaning from discarded things—an approach that began when, as a teenager, he went treasure hunting on the Los Angeles Roden, who was born in 1964 and died in 2023, called himself a wanderer, or one who walks, looks, listens, and, most importantly, spends time with his surroundings and with the objects he encounters serendipitously.
The exhibit was organized to mark the museum’s recent acquisition of his work and focuses on his works on paper, presenting drawings and collages as forms of travel without a set destination. Roden treated drawing as an experiment rather than a finished statement. He showed how drawing could function like his acts of wandering.
Ziying Duan, Assistant Curator for UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art, led a media tour of the exhibit and talked about Roden’s works.
“Roden is a quintessential California artist who lived most of his life in California. His work is unlike Sophie Calle (a companion exhibit at the museum) whose work is so much embedded with profound stories,” said Duan. “Roden’s work is kind of like counter narrative. It’s very intuitive, it’s very improvisational. It’s really relying on your own sensations and interpretation when you look at work.”
Duan said the museum was fortunate to be invited to visit his studio and also his residency in Pasadena to look at his work and make gift proposals for the museum acquisitions.
“This show grows entirely out of that moment. I will say the show is definitely paying homage to this highly respected California artist who’s under recognized, and it’s also a show that we want to really break and present here to honor and acknowledge the family’s generosity, because they basically donated all of Roden’s works,” explained Duan.
The museum made a proposal for the acquisition that focused on works on paper and drawings.
“For me personally, drawing really is a fundamental part of his practice, and it really made a huge impact into shaping the kind of artist that he chose to become,” said Duan.
According to Duan, the exhibition title is based on her understanding of both his personal lifestyle and also working method that he developed across his lifetime and career. It includes the habits of walking, riding his bike, taking the bus, and and also rat picking, or picking trash on the street, something that he frequently did when he was a kid. These were not treasures, but items people discarded that he found value in.
“Using notation, scores, maps, and symbols, his practice does not simply illustrate; it records an unfolding journey in which discord, silence, chance, and translation are as vital as narrative,” said Duan.
Duan said one series of drawings was created when Roden poured printers ink on a plastic sheet of paper and then laid his own body onto it. He then used the ink left on his body to create prints. Later, he used color pencils to trace the bodily parts, including organs and also torsos, to finish the work.
The Roden exhibit includes myriad forms of art created by Roden. The exhibit stands on its own yet is a strong companion piece to “Sophie Calle: Overshare,” which like “Steve Roden: Wanderer” is on view through May 24.
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