Richard Klein at The Mildred Complex(ity) Project Space
September 27 - November 8, 2025
Superficially, copper and fungi would seem to have little in common with each other. Richard Klein has been copper-plating organic objects, including fungi, for more than thirty years, but it was only recently that the artist realized that there were parallels between the red metal and the kingdom of eukaryotic (fungal) organisms. For Net(works), Klein brings together recent works that are made with electroplated fungi, many of which incorporate sheets of copper that have been photo engraved with images of urban landscapes, bridges, and electrical infrastructure. These works speak of the way that both copper and fungi form communication networks on the planet Earth: from the copper electric and digital grids that encircle the globe, to the filaments of fungi mycelium that connect with virtually all terrestrial plant life. Fungi and their plant partners have been critical to the evolution of life on Earth for what is estimated to be 460 million years, while copper has been instrumental in the development of civilization since its first utilization by humans over 8,000 years ago.
It is estimated that a teaspoon of healthy soil has more than 300 feet of fungal mycelium, while the average American household has over 3,000 feet of copper wiring, and the typical electric vehicle uses around 180 pounds of the metal. In the last several decades fungi have been acknowledged as being integral to virtually all ecosystems on our planet. This period has also seen an exponential increase worldwide in resource extraction, particularly for copper, for use in electrical infrastructure. Klein’s use of copper-plated fungi and other organic materials speaks in poetic terms about the connections we have with the natural world, and how natural and technological evolution have points of convergence. In the present moment use of copper is increasing at an unsustainable rate, and research into the critical role fungi play in ecosystems has moved from the margins and into the mainstream.
Richard Klein is a Connecticut-based artist, independent curator and writer. As an artist, he has exhibited widely, including the Neuberger Museum of Art at SUNY Purchase; Caren Golden Fine Art, New York; the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI; Hales Gallery, London; Gavlak Gallery, Palm Beach, FL; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA; James Barron Art, Kent, CT; The Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), Portland, OR; Schoolhouse Gallery, Provincetown, MA; Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, NY; Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY; Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Brattleboro, VT; Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, NY; Exhibit by Alberson Tulsa, OK; Incident Report/Flow Chart Foundation, Hudson, NY; ICEHOUSE Project Space, Sharon, CT; and Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Kent, CT. Reviews of his work have appeared in Two Coats of Paint, Whitehot Magazine, The New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, Art in America, and The New Yorker.
From 1999 to 2022 he was Exhibitions Director at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut. In his more than two-decade long career as a curator he has organized over 80 exhibitions, including solo shows of the work of Janine Antoni, Sol LeWitt, Mark Dion, Frank Stella, Hank Willis Thomas, Brad Kahlhamer, Kim Jones, Jack Whitten, Jessica Stockholder, Tom Sachs, and Elana Herzog. Major curatorial projects at The Aldrich have included Fred Wilson: Black Like Me (2006), No Reservations: Native American History and Culture in Contemporary Art (2006), Elizabeth Peyton: Portrait of an Artist (2008), Shimon Attie: MetroPAL.IS. (2011), Michael Joo: Drift (2014), Kay Rosen: H Is for House (2017), Weather Report (2019), Hugo McCloud: from where I stand (2021), Duane Slick: The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better (2022), and Prima Materia: The Periodic Table in Contemporary Art (2023). In 2025 he organized the exhibition Sight and Sound: Contemporary Artists Consider Long Island Sound for The Norwalk (CT) Art Space, which is traveling this November to the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery at the University of Connecticut’s Avery Point campus in Groton.
Klein’s essays on art and culture have appeared in Cabinet magazine and have been included in books published by Gregory R. Miller & Co., Damiani, Picturebox, Ridinghouse, Hatje Cantz, and the University of Chicago Press, among others.
Image: The River, 2024
Copperplate photogravure, copper electroplated Lumpy Bracket (Trametes gibbosa) fungi, aluminum support,
16 x 31 x 6 inches.