ART CITIES: Paris-Stanley Whitney
Stanley Whitney investigates the intricate possibilities of color and form in the realm of abstract painting. Since the mid-1970s, Whitney has been known for his multicolored, irregular grids on square canvases. Taking the essentialist grid of minimalism as his cue, his configurations are loose, uneven geometric lattices comprised of vibrant stacked color blocks that vary in hue, shape, and the handling of the paint. Whitney also utilizes color as subject, and his paintings often refer to literature, music, places, and other artists, connections that are bolstered in his titles.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Gagosian Archive
Inspired by the Stanley Whitney’s extended stay in the French capital, “Dear Paris” is the latest of Whitney’s lyrical abstractions. Balancing systematic structure and expressive spontaneity, he composed the painting in his characteristic manner, one roughly rectilinear block at a time, starting at the top left and progressing in rows across and down the canvas. Whitney forms each shape with energetic brushwork, choosing its vivid hues and shaping its boundaries in relation to its predecessors. The painting’s subtly shifting freehand geometry is further demarcated by linear bands between its rows that both divide and unify the composition. Stanley Whitney has spent many years experimenting with the seemingly limitless potential of a single compositional method, loosely dividing square canvases into multiple registers. The thinly applied oil paint retains his active brushwork and allows for a degree of transparency and tension at the overlapping borders between each rectilinear parcel of vivid color. In varying canvas sizes, he explores the shifting effects of his freehand geometries at both intimate and grand scales as he deftly lays down successive blocks of paint, heeding the call of each color. In his early drawings Whitney experiments with space in a freer format, with marks that are gestural and loose and the areas of color or space between horizontals are sparse and circular. Following a visit to Italy and Egypt in the early 1990s, he begins to experiment with the density of the color within the structure, as inspired by the classical and ancient architecture of the regions. Building these blocks of color, stacked on top of one another across the horizontal lines, the structure becomes more organized and the grids more precise and angular over the following decades. Working without preparatory materials, Whitney combines balance and intuition in his approach to painting, as each color block is painted sequentially in relation to the ongoing arrangement. This process is expressive, improvisational, and can be linked to jazz, which continually inspires the artist. As Whitney has stated, “The way that it’s a little offbeat, polyrhythmic; the way that things move. Nothing’s straight. Nothing’s regular. Everything’s a little crooked. And I think that’s really what comes out of the music. It comes out of the beat, it comes out of how people walk, the way people wear their hat, just a little off. I think about all of those kinds of things and want them in the painting”.
Photo: Stanley Whitney, Untitled, 2019 Gouache on paper, 22 × 30 inches (55.9 × 76.2 cm), © Stanley Whitney. Photo: Rob McKeever, Courtesy the artist and Gagosian
Info: Gagosian Gallery, 9 rue de Castiglione, Paris, France, Duration: 10/1-28/2/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:30-18:30, https://gagosian.com/
