In 2008, Robert Beck changed his artistic signature to Robert Buck. The artist’s latest exhibition, “Kahpenakwu” (Comanche for “west”), at CRG Gallery features sculptures, paintings, assemblages, and drawings inspired by the landscape of the American Southwest. Here Buck discusses the exhibition as well as issues of authorship and identity. The show is on view until February 18.

MY AIM was to handle the object head-on, explicitly, which is why I built things around detritus from the desert––a rusted metal husk, a wooden palette, road “gators,” yucca leaves. Transported to the white cube, the litter, elevated there to the status of the object, becomes venerated, talismanic, or consecrated. It’s about the death of objects––what