Steve Roden: wandering

Los Angeles–based artist Steve Roden (b. 1964, Los Angeles, CA; d. 2023, Los Angeles, CA) worked across painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, video, music, and sound. He 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 city streets. He also called himself a wanderer, one who walks, looks, listens, and, most importantly, spends time with his surroundings and with the objects he encounters serendipitously. Through these habits, Roden developed a deeply personal way of moving through the world, connecting elements that were never meant to be joined. Organized to mark the museum's recent acquisition of his work, Steve Roden: wandering focuses on his works on paper, presenting drawings and collages as forms of travel without a set destination. Influenced by conceptual artists such as Tom Marioni and Robert Morris, Roden treated drawing as an experiment rather than a finished statement, welcoming failure and valuing vulnerability. This openness led him away from prescribed paths and fostered a cross-disciplinary practice that places special emphasis on listening. Roden showed how drawing could function like his acts of wandering—meandering, pausing, sensing through time and space. 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.