Tag Archives: Shep Steiner

Ribbons

One of the pieces reproduced on this blog shows how interlacing is present in my Islands. As with internal articulation of the forms, it is implied but not completely visible. But now I see that one value of my watercolors … Continue reading

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Pink and Blue

I remember Shep and I lying on our backs on the floor of the Ca’ Rezzonico in Venice, staring up at a large Tiepolo ceiling in cotton candy pink and baby blue. That work, which was utterly strange to me … Continue reading

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Art and the Inhuman

Following on from the previous post, the way that paintings overcome the necessary limits of a single work attributable to a single author is through the objectivity of the aesthetic, but this is not well understood today because both viewers … Continue reading

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Vividness

It might be possible to propose a theory as to why modern art, in its later stage, has been preoccupied with scale and shape. Reduction of elements and simplification of form has the effect of making what is left more … Continue reading

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Scale and Composition

Shep Steiner’s recent comment affirms that T.J.Clark’s recent LRB article on Picasso and British art is worth reading. What Clark is responding to is Picasso’s skill at scaling the image to the size of the canvas, something that all great … Continue reading

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The Future Program

I’ve decided I will continue as I have for the last couple of weeks, and post every second day. I was posting every day, and then when burned out would stop for two or three days. There’s no shortage of … Continue reading

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Series and painting

I still intend to spend some time on Motherwell, because for me he presents important problems about the literary in abstraction, but just today I’ve been reading one of Shep Steiner’s new pieces, this one about Frank Stella. One quote … Continue reading

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Pre-conceptualism Part 3

The way that Michael Fried keeps harping on about how the work of an artist like Morris Louis “stands comparison with the greatest art of the past,” or words to that effect, surely indicates that the matter is in doubt. … Continue reading

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Organicism Going Forward

I do not want to make a work that is limited by my own ability, or by the narrow compass of what I am able to comprehend on a normal day. In the era of global conceptualism this is exactly … Continue reading

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Olitski Part 2

Following from the preceding post, the sublimation of cubism and color field into something new would be a good description of my own work, though in that case the “new” is a stance toward nature embodied in the method, so … Continue reading

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Echo Again

Before carrying on with the topic from the previous post I’d like to pick up an earlier thread that also links the objective matter of abstract painting with the movement of the imagination. Somehow I suspect that quotes from Harold … Continue reading

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Opticality of Sculpture

Shep Steiner has just sent me his chapter on Olitski, and, as usual, his observations are inspiring and very original. He says that Michael Fried has it that Greenberg’s remarks on the opticality of sculpture, referred to in an earlier … Continue reading

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Perspectives on Pollock

Last week Shep Steiner sent me his latest piece on Pollock, a chapter of the book he’s working on. As always his work is really great, and it sent me back to Clark, Greenberg and others. I’m grateful to Shep … Continue reading

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