Anand wrote
<A photograph has to be a photograph of something, or
evidence of the chemical processes of photography itself.>
To extend further,
Does a painting have to be a painting of "something"?
Does anything have to be about "anything"?
The book mentioned earlier in this list, Vanishing Point
also addresses these issues. As well,
Ad Reinhardt was an artist that delved into "nothing".....
A painter who grappled with these issues earlier than most:
Ad Reinhardt
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_133A.html
1960-67
His black paintings (he was heading in this direction, though, since the late 1940's if you study the progression of his work).
He wanted to make "the last painting anyone can make", and gave his later works titles such as Ultimate Painting No. 17, 39.....
He was serious about this, was firmly opposed to Dada and Surrealism. He wanted to eliminate form through equilibrium.
Yves-Alain Bois said "Reinhardt's originality lies in the oxymoronic use he makes of the strategic model, perhaps the most complex and important point of his aesthetic: his strategy is aimed against art-as-strategy, art-as-play, art-as-agon...against the against. In other words, it is directected against the art of everyone else - almost - which is both the only logical position and the most difficult one."(1) From the catalog accompanying the 1990 exhibition, Ad Reinhardt. Museum of Modern Art, NY and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, p. 14.
See also:
Paul Brach. "Ad Reinhardt: Ultimate Chroma." Art in America (March 1980): 96-98.
Annette Cox. "Against Interpretation: Ad Reinhardt and His Art-As-Art Dogma." Art-As-Politics: The Abstract Expressionist Avant-Garde and Society. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982 p. 105-128.
Thomas McEvilley. "Heads it's Form, Tails it's Not Content." Artforum 21.3:50-61.
Naomi Vine. The Total Dark Sublime: An Interpretive Analysis of the Late Black Paintings of Ad Reinhardt - 1960-67. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1989.
Carter Ratcliff (Artforum and Art in America) and Lucy Lippard (Art in America) have also written on Ad Reinhardt. More recently, there have been museum shows featuring his works.
cheryl
<A photograph has to be a photograph of something, or
evidence of the chemical processes of photography itself.>
To extend further,
Does a painting have to be a painting of "something"?
Does anything have to be about "anything"?
The book mentioned earlier in this list, Vanishing Point
also addresses these issues. As well,
Ad Reinhardt was an artist that delved into "nothing".....
A painter who grappled with these issues earlier than most:
Ad Reinhardt
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_133A.html
1960-67
His black paintings (he was heading in this direction, though, since the late 1940's if you study the progression of his work).
He wanted to make "the last painting anyone can make", and gave his later works titles such as Ultimate Painting No. 17, 39.....
He was serious about this, was firmly opposed to Dada and Surrealism. He wanted to eliminate form through equilibrium.
Yves-Alain Bois said "Reinhardt's originality lies in the oxymoronic use he makes of the strategic model, perhaps the most complex and important point of his aesthetic: his strategy is aimed against art-as-strategy, art-as-play, art-as-agon...against the against. In other words, it is directected against the art of everyone else - almost - which is both the only logical position and the most difficult one."(1) From the catalog accompanying the 1990 exhibition, Ad Reinhardt. Museum of Modern Art, NY and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, p. 14.
See also:
Paul Brach. "Ad Reinhardt: Ultimate Chroma." Art in America (March 1980): 96-98.
Annette Cox. "Against Interpretation: Ad Reinhardt and His Art-As-Art Dogma." Art-As-Politics: The Abstract Expressionist Avant-Garde and Society. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982 p. 105-128.
Thomas McEvilley. "Heads it's Form, Tails it's Not Content." Artforum 21.3:50-61.
Naomi Vine. The Total Dark Sublime: An Interpretive Analysis of the Late Black Paintings of Ad Reinhardt - 1960-67. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1989.
Carter Ratcliff (Artforum and Art in America) and Lucy Lippard (Art in America) have also written on Ad Reinhardt. More recently, there have been museum shows featuring his works.
cheryl