Allan Wexler

Allan Wexler (b. 1949) has worked in the fields of architecture, design, and fine art for over fifty years. In the late 1960s, he was an early member of the group of architects and artists who questioned the perceived divide between art and the design disciplines. They called themselves non-architects or paper architects. In 2017, Lars Müller published Absurd Thinking: Between Art and Design, a book on Wexler’s work and creative process. The book features projects developed across the artist’s career that mediate the gap between fine and applied art using the mediums of architecture, sculpture, photography, painting, and drawing.

Wexler earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts (1971) and his Bachelor of Architecture (1972) from RISD and his Master of Architecture from Pratt Institute (1976). He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2016), is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and a winner of both a Chrysler Award for Design Innovation and the Henry J. Leir Prize from the Jewish Museum. He has executed public art commissions at several locations, including Hudson River Park at 29th Street (2006), Atlantic Terminal, Long Island Railroad (2009), and Pratt Institute (2008, 2012).

He has exhibited nationally and internationally, including La Arsenale, Biennale Architettura, Venice, IT; The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY; San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA; Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum, Hagen, DE; De Cordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA; The Jewish Museum, New York, NY; among many others. Wexler currently teaches at Parsons the New School of Design in New York City.