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Stanley Whitney, N.O.9th Ward, 2007, Oil on canvas, 102 x 102 cm | | |
STANLEY WHITNEY - bluetopic
Opening: March 29, 2007, 7 - 9 pm
Duration of the exhibition: March 30 - May 19, 2007
STANLEY WHITNEY
was born in Philadelphia in 1946, lives and works in New York and Rome. Attended courses at Yale University, at Kansas City Art Institute and at Columbus College in Ohio. Numerous exhibits since the 70s, including the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, The Studio Museum Harlem, Jack Tilton Gallery New York, Magazzino d´Arte Moderna Rome, Zerynthia Rome, Esso Gallery New York, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. We first displayed Whitney's art in the exhibit Quiet As It's Kept curated by David Hammons in 2002 and together with the Austrian painter Andreas Reiter Raabe in 2003. Catalogues with texts by Geoffrey Jacques and Raphael Rubinstein were published by the gallery for both shows.
Whitney´s works can be thought in relation to Donald Judd, Philip Guston and African esthetics. It is based on the idea of multiple horizon lines and relates to such basic human activities as textile making and architecture.
The structure of the paintings by Stanley Whitney is radical through its simplicity: rectangular blocks of color are layered on top of oneanother in rows and separated by horizontal ribbons of color. This structure purely serves the purpose of painting, yet at the same time representing communication on a metabolical level. Whitney's art is sumptuous and laconic, its efficiency strangely correlates to the city in which he lives: New York. Not mistakenly, the arrangement and the effect of the many color applications in various shades of green, orange, red, blue, etc. have been compared to the rhythm of jazz, a visual polyrhythm. What remains fundamental is the playful approach to color, the dynamic tension that is introduced between the colors, the formal complexity, and the apparent nonchalance with which he attains it. |
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