Source Hollandays, 1958/74 Untitled no. 3, 1976 EXCERPT FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT SLUTZKY BY EMMANUEL J. PETIT I was taught as an art student that it was taboo to articulate the center of the painting in too strong a way. The center was a position in the canvas that didn't want to be made too perceptually obvious. As I began to become involved with Mondrian's aesthetics of Neo- Plasticism, I took that as a challenge. I tried to treat the geographic center of the painting as at once independent of its surroundings and part of the composition. Yet my painting is less about an opposition between center and periphery than an enactment of the perceptual forces of push and pull. In an early painting I did, called Source Hollandays, the center of the canvas is occupied by a red square. But because this shape immediately associates with its neighboring forms in different ways, the center ceases to read as a center, and the eye engages in a multitude of relationships in time. The black and white element brings the same idea into many other paintings of mine. This idea has stayed with me a long time, through most of my paintings of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, and eventually it has become a kind of signature. I suppose it is an unconscious homage to one of my teachers, Josef Albers, to whom the center of the canvas was very essential in his exploration of the square. The central black and white element denotes the ideal condition of complementarity, one of the major themes that runs through my work. More metaphorically, it can be perceived as a window of light and darkness. The white is a field of light that seems to emanate from behind the curtains of color to expose the rear plane of the composition. The black, on the other hand, is an absence of light. It can be read as a tear in the fabric, a black hole that absorbs the light. So it has a kind of metaphysical presence. In some paintings, I consciously thought of the black as the body and the white as the head, making geometry imitate nature. In other cases, this element reads as an axonometric solid. You can perceive a black roof above a white front facade. Incidentally, this reading is a violation of the Neo-Plastic avoidance of any scale references, of any allusion to real dimensions or representational relationships. Nevertheless, the possibility of illusion is key in my work. As you will discover, sometimes I paint this element in a very muted way – the white and the black look like lost travelers in a huge landscape. In other cases, they are energetic and very demanding perceptually; they become a perceptual irritant. I am attracted to the hermetics of musical
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Cooper Union School of Architecture_ Exhibitions_ Spectral Emanations
Cooper Union School of Architecture_ Exhibitions_ Spectral Emanations
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Source Hollandays, 1958/74
Untitled no. 3, 1976
EXCERPT FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT SLUTZKY
BY EMMANUEL J. PETIT
I was taught as an art student that it
was taboo to articulate the center of the
painting in too strong a way. The center
was a position in the canvas that didn't
want to be made too perceptually
obvious. As I began to become involved
with Mondrian's aesthetics of Neo-
Plasticism, I took that as a challenge. I
tried to treat the geographic center of the
painting as at once independent of its
surroundings and part of the
composition. Yet my painting is less
about an opposition between center and
periphery than an enactment of the
perceptual forces of push and pull. In an
early painting I did, called Source
Hollandays, the center of the canvas is occupied by a red square. But because this
shape immediately associates with its neighboring forms in different ways, the center
ceases to read as a center, and the eye engages in a multitude of relationships in
time. The black and white element brings the same idea into many other paintings of
mine. This idea has stayed with me a long time, through most of my paintings of the
1970s, '80s, and '90s, and eventually it has become a kind of signature. I suppose it is
an unconscious homage to one of my teachers, Josef Albers, to whom the center of
the canvas was very essential in his exploration of the square.
The central black and white element
denotes the ideal condition of
complementarity, one of the major
themes that runs through my work. More
metaphorically, it can be perceived as a
window of light and darkness. The white
is a field of light that seems to emanate
from behind the curtains of color to
expose the rear plane of the
composition. The black, on the other
hand, is an absence of light. It can be
read as a tear in the fabric, a black hole
that absorbs the light. So it has a kind of
metaphysical presence.
In some paintings, I consciously thought
of the black as the body and the white
as the head, making geometry imitate nature. In other cases, this element reads as an
axonometric solid. You can perceive a black roof above a white front facade.
Incidentally, this reading is a violation of the Neo-Plastic avoidance of any scale
references, of any allusion to real dimensions or representational relationships.
Nevertheless, the possibility of illusion is key in my work. As you will discover,
sometimes I paint this element in a very muted way – the white and the black look like
lost travelers in a huge landscape. In other cases, they are energetic and very
demanding perceptually; they become a perceptual irritant.