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| Kenneth Noland, Version, 1982 |
It was with
great delight that I saw Kenneth Noland’s current exhibition at Almine Rech
today. I feel as though Noland is one of those artists whose work is easily
recognizeable but that I know very little about. The concentric circles,
stripes, and odd shaped canvases were so integral to the revolution in postwar
American painting that they became household images. Yet beyond the familiar circles
so central to Greenberg’s pronouncements about abstract art, very few other
paintings came to mind when thinking of Noland.
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| Kenneth Noland, Pink Lady, 1978 |
The current
hanging at Almine Rech is surprising for the variety of the artist’s work
across the past 50 years. Although it retains the concern with color, canvas
and the essentials of painting, it does so in many different ways. The familiar
tensions between color and line, the dethroning of the rectangle, and of
course, the circle, the vulnerability and excitement of the edges, continue to
be his concern until the end of his life.
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| Kenneth Noland, Play, 1960 |
The first
thing I noticed on entering the gallery was not simply the odd shape of the
canvases, but also, the unanticipated use of colors. He uses both shape
and color to challenge the viewer’s perception of art, questioning what we
expect a painting to be, as well as what it will do, and how we will interact with it.
The role of shape in this is clear, but he also uses color in ways that
completely refuse to allow us to indulge in the sumptuousness of painting. For
example, the sprayed pink surface of Pink Lady, 1978 offers an area of unbroken
surface and a flat picture plane. Nothing about it makes us want to move closer,
spend longer or develop intimacy with the image. As such, this and others
remains the perfect example of Greenberg’s notion of post-painterly
abstraction. Where the shape of the canvas, the absence of gesture, and the
resultant cool acrylic surface challenge everything we know about painting. Not
to mention the fact that a work such as this can be physically difficult to look at thanks to
the glare resulting from the acrylic sheen.
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| Kenneth Noland, Comet, 1983 |
In one of the side rooms, we see Noland’s Comet, 1983, a work that harks back to
the strips and parallel lines of the 1950s and 1960s, but not. The thick paint
applied with a spatula gives the suggestion of being luscious, but is, in fact,
as cold and distant as any of the thin spray painted surfaces. Even though the
material has a glutinous texture, there is no mistaking its plasticity. That
said, the small hints of gesture and emotion are thrilling: the paint going
over the edge of the canvas, the drips and splashes that have (we assume
mistakenly, but no doubt they were intentional) found their way into the colour field change everything. In
addition, when the edges are no longer even, the lines no longer perfectly
straight, our attention becomes focussed on the edges, the patterns, the
tensions, and the chance smudges of painting. These moments become more serious
than the color field itself, and we try to connect to the human hand behind its
execution.
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| Kenneth Noland, Into the Cool No.9, 2006 |
I think what is most striking about these works today is that they haven’t lost their radicality.
Whereas an artist like Warhol becomes Romantic in retrospect, and we indulge in
his play with color and light, in his painterly gestures, Noland’s surfaces
remain harsh, and difficult to look at. They are unrelenting in their commitment
to challenging everything we know about painting.
