four basic kinds of straight lines [3]
for malevich, the monochrome was both a spiritual icon to be displayed as religious images were traditionally seen in russia, as well as a step in the revolutionary process toward the elimination of the object. … the idea was to create a space as limitless as the sky, which would transcend the limitless boundaries of the canvas. [4]
cultural theorist stuart hall has written about the relationship between power and fantasy within racialized regimes of representation. hall identifies fantacy as one of the /operations/ of racist systems of power — it mobilizes stereotypes to create and maintain misperceptions about the other. blackness as a /trope of of racialized communication/ is as much about a politics of difference as it is about formalism. we must be wary of value systems in the arts that seek to create bina-ries and hierarchies that falsely grant form-alism a type of universalizing neutrality. [5]
The Self of you
” ” ” me
Who care about 1-2-3.
The Self of you
” ” ” me
[o]nce neleveon had possession of the found object, its origins were disguised with a surfeit of paint — all black, all white, or all gold — to foster an elegant uniformity, an equality of meaning and a distinct iconography. she conceals (rather than reveals) any allusion to history, to the past. by assembling desperate objects into a new whole, the incomplete becomes complete. [6]
josef albers: seeing several of these paintings next to each other makes it obvious that each painting is an instrumentation in its own.
this means that they all are of different palettes, and, therefore, so to speak, of different climates. choice of the colors used, as well as their order, is aimed at an interaction — influencing and changing each other forth and back.
thus, character and feeling alters from painting to painting without any additional ‘hand writing’ or, so called, texture.
though the underlying symmetrical and quasi-concentric order of squares remains the same in all paintings — in proportion and placement — these same squares group or single themselves, connect and separate in many different ways.
in consequence, they move forth and back, in and out, and grow up and down and near and far, as well as, enlarged and diminished. all this, to proclaim color autonomy as a means of a plastic organization. [8]
[1] Lawson, Shayla. I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean. Saturnalia Books, 2018. p 133 (from Liner Notes).
[2] Morrison, Toni. The Origin of Others. Harvard University Press, 2017. p 35-36.
[3] monoskop.org/images/5/5a/LeWitt_Sol_Four_Basic_Kinds_of_Straight_Lines.pdf
[4] Rose, Barbara. Monochromes: from Malevich to the Present. University of California Press, 2006. p 27.
[5] Murray, Derek Conrad. Queering Post-Black Art Artists Transforming African-American Identity after Civil Rights. I.B. Tauris, 2016. p 48
[6] Rapaport, Brooke Kamin. The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson Constructing a Legend: Jewish Museum New York, 2007.
[7] monoskop.org/media/sound/Nieto_Mikel_R_Dark_Sound_2016.mp3
[6] Albers, Josef. “Josef Albers on His Homage to the Square.” Guggenheim, 5 Nov. 2019, http://www.guggenheim.org/audio/track/josef-albers-on-his-homage-to-the-square. (ca. 1954, typescript) folder 263, box 27, Josef Albers Papers (MS 32), Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University.
[9] monoskop.org/images/c/c9/Hesse_Eva_Circles_and_Grids.pdf
[image] [ros — full .pdf]
