The works in Seeking Engagement: The Art of Richard Kamler by Steven Schwartz span Richard Kamler’s productive career and passion for creating social change. These works range from Out of Holocaust (1976), a full-size reconstruction of a barracks from Auschwitz, to the Table of Voices (1996–2013), installed on Alcatraz Island and traveling throughout the United States, to Seeing Peace (2002–present), a continent-spanning collaboration with international artists and the United Nations, to The Tower of Babel (in progress), which explores the origins of language and proposes building a literal tower at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Richard Kamler rouses us to see beyond our conditioned reactions—to challenge apparently unbendable realities with the possibility: imagine how it could be different.
Richard Kamler, artist, educator, curator has for 30 years been engaged with creating art that takes as its premise that of social change and cultural transformation. He has received numerous awards for this work, among them a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Soros Foundation Open Society Artist Fellowship, a California Arts Council Fellowship, and a grant from the Institute for Noetic Sciences. Kamler has exhibited his installations, sound pieces, drawings, sculptures, presentations, actions and events in museums, galleries and public spaces throughout the world.