Vielmetter Los Angeles congratulates the Steve Roden Estate on the opening of Steve Roden: wandering, at the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art opening January 30th and running through May 24, 2026.
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.