The Castle of Perseverance
The Castle of Perseverance (1978) is a life-sized sculptural installation, first exhibited in 1978 at the Newport Harbor Art Museum (now the Orange County Museum of Art). The Castle is Reiss’ interpretation of a typical American middle-class living room of the 1970s, recreated entirely in particleboard. The uniform, monochromatic yellow-brown surfaces create a real/unreal environment, which Reiss also employs in his miniatures. This installation presents an opportunity for visitors to enter and inhabit the diorama-like conceptual and narrative sculptures for which Reiss was so widely recognized - and to envision themselves as the human figurines inside.
The Castle of Perseverance was acquired by the Hammer Museum in 2021.
