Perpetual Ripplets
Reinhardt

Yuko Otomo
January 2014

Part One: Ad Reinhardt at David Zwirner
Part Two: Ad Reinhardt Retrospective at MoMA

Introduction:

I have been writing so-called “critical writing,” mainly on visual art, for quite a while. Interestingly, “critical writing” came to exist in my world as the last means of creative activities, following “art (making)” and “poetry.” Since I do not like to “will” the course of the history of my development and involvement in art, I was ecstatically happy when the first critical writing came to me naturally. It coincided with the moment when I became aware of the fact that I finally was able to SEE art in the most open and clear sense, with my own eyes and mind, without being influenced by the ideas and voices of the others. I was totally mesmerized with the effects caused by the phenomenon of SEEING with my own EYES. I was in some kind of an intense euphoric sensation even when I left the museum. It all happened at the exhibition of Van Gogh in St. Remy and Auvers (Metropolitan Museum, 1987). Next day, I found myself dictating the feelings bubbling inside of me, being inspired & stimulated by the experience. Since then, critical writing has been part of my creative life, although most of it is unpublished.

When I was invited to be part of ARTEIDOLIA, I thought of The Artists’ Club, where artists, writers, poets, musicians, thinkers from the different fields got together to exchange ideas and thought more than half a century ago in downtown New York City. The world we live now is extremely compartmentalized. Artists stay in the field of art; musicians in music and writers in writing. A sense of segregation among creative beings of our time is clinically intense, fueled by egotism based on the instinct of self-preservation in the survival game. The 21st Century is now almost half way into the second decade and nothing seems to be changing. The ARTEIDOLIA site can be The Club of our time. If we start communicating with each other despite the differences of practices as the members of The Club did, something healthy might emerge out of the new experience we’d share.

I decided to call my column “Perpetual Ripplets” and am planning to post mostly unpublished “old” writings done in the past mixed with some new writing as time goes by. Our ideas, viewpoint and focus of thought shift as we change as the world around us changes. Mixing the old and the new writing, I can examine my thought-process from the new angle.

Here, as an inaugural piece, I’d like to present the writing on Ad Reinhardt in two parts in two installments. Part One: the observation on the recent show in Chelsea, and Part Two: the writing done on the 1991 MoMA retrospective. To launch this new series of my critical writing on art in the midst of the monstrous multiple complications of the art world, who/what could be more perfectly suitable Reinhardt and his art?

ON AD REINHARDT

Part One

Ad Reinhardt
(at David Zwirner Nov. 7 – Dec. 18, 2013)

1. Song of Innocence

I have a few very important mentors I always consult whenever I encounter problems, and Ad Reinhardt is one of them. I have never met him and he doesn’t know me, but I know him quite well and talk to him often. I became his student without his consent after I saw his 1991 MoMA retrospective, and the reading of his book Art As Art (the 1991 first paperback edition) immediately followed. Encountering him, his art and writing, was a life affirming experience in the truest sense.

I love to see things as purely as possible my way without being influenced by others. Especially, when I do art viewing, I avoid any outside inputs or knowledge/information as possible. Like I do not read a film review before I see the film, I try to keep my mind/heart/psyche as empty and untainted as possible. When I went to his MoMA retrospective, all I knew of him was the experience of seeing his work here and there in the gallery situations. I barely knew him or his art.

When I read his book Art As Art, I was totally moved by his shockingly clear sense of awareness of why he did art and what it meant to be an artist. Soon I found he was a close friend of Thomas Merton, whose work I already was familiar with. Reinhardt’s deep connection to Eastern philosophy further made me close to him. Then I learned he was a student of Meyer Shapiro and I found the linage of Shapiro-Reinhardt-Merton-D.T. Suzuki very fascinating.

Since then, I go back to his book repeatedly whenever I face any unbearable vulgarity and corruption of the world surrounding art. I read his writing on Art and Life, Art and Ethics, Art and Religion, Art and Education and other chapters to keep my mind and heart clean and open. Especially, in recent years, as we witness the obvious psychic shift in the operation of art institutions, I’ve been re-reading his writing* on the role and the purpose of a museum (* “…A museum is a treasure house and tomb, not a counting house or amusement center. A museum that becomes an art curator’s personal monument or an art-collector-satisfying establishment or an art-history manufacturing plant or an artists’ market block is a disgrace…” from Art as Art). The worsening reality of a devastating magnitude of money corruption relating to art also always brings me back to his words naturally. They are like a clear bell of conscience ringing in the murky and toxic air of our environment. Nobody teaches me to reaffirm the position where I stand as he does.

So, when I heard of the Zwirner Reinhardt centennial anniversary show, I welcomed it wholeheartedly. The idea of seeing three aspects of his creative life: graphic work/cartoons; slides collection and “ultimate” Black Paintings in one gallery was overwhelmingly inviting. At the MoMA1991 retrospective, I regrettably rushed through his graphic work too quickly because of my heightened anticipation to see his painting. So, to be able to see his cartoons, especially the How to Look series again, was such an unexpected gift to receive. I surely got excited about the prospect.

Another thrill was to see his slide collection, of which I knew nothing at all. Although I know he was a world traveler and passionate scholar/student of world art history, I had no idea about this massive collection of photo-slides he used to use for lectures.

I started with his cartoons and graphic work first.

I was amazed to realize how well I remembered most of the How to Look and other panels despite of the rushed viewing. And I was also amazed to see how powerfully well they work in our time. He saw the roots of corruption then in art and in humanity, and his vision is still on the mark now, or even more so. The determined clarity of his mind and unreserved tongue cut through the matter in such a way, it was fresh air we needed so desperately.

I love to imagine a scene of laymen reading his How to Look and other cartoons in newspapers and other periodicals in their living rooms or in their kitchens. What did they see in them? Did they understand what he was talking about? Did they laugh? Did they get bothered and angry? And what did they do after they finished reading them? Did they save them or throw them away into the garbage or pile them up in the corner of the room? Did they use it to wrap something? The fact these cartoons were part of the everyday ephemeral culture, not precious items, makes the whole thing more fascinating. Of course, now we see them as framed art objects to observe with some required serious manner. This passage of transformation from one to the other is quite remarkable, and I wonder how Reinhardt himself would feel about that.

Like his handwriting, his graphic art has a very particular calligraphic style. He is superbly skilled at presenting the fact and the truth in the simplest statement and form in one. His intelligence, firm philosophical standpoint and determined passion to “correct” injustice and wrong doings make these cartoons extraordinarily powerful. Collaged and drawn, these “funny” cartoons go way beyond the funniness naturally. They wake you up as they make you laugh.

Now, I move to the slides room.

I always enjoy a sense of unexpected synchronicity when it takes place. In the morning of the day I went to see this show, I happened to be reading Modern Paintings by Hideo Kobayashi (1902 – 1983), a father of Japanese modern critical literature, whose writing keeps intriguing me despite of his overtly pro-war attitude during the WW2. I was immersed in the passage of his writing on Pyramids. He talks of the role of its abstract form and of humanity’s original imputes toward abstraction in general, relating to Picasso’s refusal to accept the word and the concept of “abstraction” in his long and in-depth critical writing on Picasso. He goes on talking on the subject of Pyramids and other ancient forms of abstraction for more than a few pages before he goes into the talk on Picasso.

So, when I sat down on a bench in the slides room, I felt almost afloat, shocked by the synchronized subject! I sat alone in the room where the loop of his slide collection went on to show me the universal sense toward forms shared by human psyches from the different cultures and civilizations surpassing time/space. What a fascinating juxtaposition of comparative viewing experience it was! The effect was totally magical, inducing me to open my mind up to see the world in a completely different way. It is said that the collection amasses 12,000 slides. I’d love to see them all in one shot without stopping to see how I’d be changed at the end of the experience. We have to thank the curator Robert Storr who arranged this show for giving us such a special chance to see one of the most unknown creative activities of his.

By the time I finished this mesmerizing experience of slide viewing, I was ecstatic and too excited to sit down to observe his ultimate Black Paintings in the rear room. Not being able to gain the right frame of mind, I walked through them rather fast. If I sat down long enough, I could have been able to adjust the frame of mind. But instead I gave in to my inability and left the gallery.

* * *

Reinhardt was born 100 years ago in 1913. According to one of my favorite writings of his, Chronology (1966), he himself cites that that was the year of Armory Show, and it was the year Malevich painted his first geometric-abstract painting. It was a year before Mondrian began plus-minus painting. The year when the 20th Century finally started to breathe its own life and it is also the year of publication of Proust’s Remembering the Things Past: Swann’s Way and DH Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. The scandalous Rite of Spring premier also took place this year in Paris. Interesting to note, Reinhardt shares the birth year with Benjamin Britten, Meret Oppenheim, Albert Camus and Robert Capa. And it was the year of Matisse’s second visit to Morocco. I enjoy seeing the genesis of his history in this historical comparative perspective.

In my adopted home, New York City, where he lived most of his life, I walk in the area he frequented more than a 1/2 century ago. Waverly Place and Broadway (where I see the window of his studio); West 8th St.; Mercer St.; and Brooklyn… I recognized the images of buildings & their facades of the city in his slides collection. I also befriended a student of his at Brooklyn College. Like the history of the city, his personal history in the history of art still lives on in many levels within us. As he stated, “The artist is responsible for his history and his nature. His history is part of his nature. His nature as artist is part of his art-history.”

2. Song of Experience

“This is an ‘industry’ in its golden age.”

“One of the reasons there’s so much talk about money is that it’s easier to talk about money than the art.”

“Nobody’s selling expensive stuff like we do with the frequency we do.”

— David Zwirner

Nothing in this show is for sale. This show was organized to celebrate the centennial anniversary of his birth and the gallery’s inauguration of handling of his estate to help maintaining his foundation, having been switched from the last dealer.

Reinhardt was keenly aware of the black magic of the power of “money.” Although he had dealers and galleries that dealt his work handling them in the so-called “marketplace,” he felt a heavy disdain toward art dealings and its commerce. He stated clearly that he did not really like art dealing and private collecting. He thought the museum was the natural place for important work, finally. He rallied against the museums to make them have more space for the art he believed in. Consequently, his work has shown in prominent museum shows quite well. And he was given a retrospective at the Jewish Museum in NYC, while he was alive at the age of 53, showing one hundred twenty paintings of his.

As a purist, he was always striving to find a “sanctuary” (physical, metaphysical and spiritual) for art: where artists can work; where art can be taken care of and stored; how artists can survive; how the economy of the market place should work in the service for the sake of purity of art. His pursuit was always aimed toward a shared goal for all pure artists, not just his alone. He painted, did graphic works, took photographs, wrote, traveled and taught. It is truly fascinating and almost horrifying to read his Government and the Arts in Art and Politics now. The segment tells us the exact environment we live in. The description of the state of corruption he faced then is a carbon copy of what we face now, only at in more magnified and multiplied level of toxicity. “Money-making” “Money-hungry” “Power-ridden” and “Marketeering” “Profiteering” “Privateering”… “Exorbitant prices, commissions, art payola, bribery, market-rigging, speculating.”… “Fraudulent claims, concentration of power, organized pressure, misrepresentation, adulterated products.” …

No matter what, painting is material, and it has to be taken care of. Otherwise, it gets soiled and ruined. Especially, Reinhardt‘s work needs a lot of care to maintain its eternal quality to be shared by other humans. Since every aspect of our life is woven into the “money” economy, in order to run the foundation to safeguard his art, you need “money.” So, whether he liked it or not, the estate has to have “money” to accomplish its function. In order to get “money,” some portion of his archive could be sold to feed the other facets of the foundation, so to speak, unless private donors give it a sum big enough to secure its operation. Since the museum system in which Reinhardt had a hopeful and idealistic trust does not support a private foundation financially, no matter, “money” has to be raised somehow to have the organization’s self sufficiency. Buying/selling and Currency Exchange. Nothing and no one can escape one of the most common human activities: “Commerce via Money.” Whether Reinhardt himself liked it or not, his art has been dealt by dealers and collectors with “money’ as the shared instrument.

In Reinhardt’s time, things were much smaller in scale. Then, it was the art “scene” and soon it grew into being the art “world”. Now it’s the art “industry.” When an “industry” takes things over, something toxically damaging follows because of the inherent mechanical and unnatural elements involved. Almost anything to do with “industry” always ends up being a massive, corrosive ruin of some kind. We can see a regrettable result of an industrialization of agriculture destroying culture and nature of the planet. So, hearing the word “industry” coming out from the newly appointed dealer of his art was a shock. Then, again, I thought that it might be healthier to state it directly and openly as it is, instead of camouflage it to hide the reality, since every aspect of art dealing is already heavily saturated with the black magic of “money power” one way or the other. When art is considered one of the most highly priced luxury goods and one of the safest commodities unaffected by the social and political change as today, what is a pure artist such as Reinhardt supposed to do? How can his art defend its integrity without him speaking out? The monstrous lethal power of “money’ can destroy the last fortress of anyone’s conscience in any minute.

The “nothing is for sale” policy of this show is a courteous ceremonial gesture to abide by Reinhardt’s philosophy and his wishes with respect. But naturally it will be broken as soon as the show closes. Stimulated by the new “boom” for his art and the new dealership, his work will surely go up in price. One of Reinhardt’s favorite words that he passionately used whenever he faced any injustice or wrongdoings was “disgrace.” I desperately hope everyone who is involved or getting involved in his art will “deal” his work as “gracefully” as possible. Not doing so would be an unforgivable sacrilegious act: the utmost insult to a responsible idealist who lived and worked with a clear belief in the sacred quality of art and the role of an artist. Nobody should cross the line of corruption in any form.

I also fear a possible spiritual corruption of some artists of our time who would make Reinhardt’s Black Painting into a “style” of painting to follow and modify. I do not wish to see a flood of “a la Reinhardt black (and white)/monochrome Neo-Minimalist paintings” being instigated by this new interest in his work. He did “the last painting” to clear the path for us all so we can go on to explore our own “invisible” world. It was not a “style” he created for the sake of the style, but it was the ultimate conclusion of his philosophical search. Using the color black does not bring anyone close to an understanding of his theory. On the contrary, any artist who takes his Black Painting as a style to follow is committing another case of blasphemy to his art and to him.

Postscript: Some Questions for Reinhardt

a) On his belief on academia:

One subject I’ve always wanted to bring up to him (if we could ever have a dialogue) is his firm belief on academia as the sanctuary for artists to live, work and study. He went to Columbia College for a liberal arts education, when most of the young artists went to art schools to learn their métier, not to colleges. There, he was a student of Meyer Shapiro and he met Thomas Merton and other stimulating figures. His case was rare and the education he received at the college environment was almost ideal.

It is interesting to compare his time with our time, when getting art or art history degrees in academic institutions is considered a complete social norm. As the education system has become more and more structurally industrialized, as everything else has, and degrees are considered as “tickets to ride” in the social system; young artists now do not go there to look for an isolated sanctuary to live and work but to prepare themselves for their careers. I wonder what Reinhardt would make out of the recent explosion of MFA students the education system is mass-producing to send them directly into a “degree”-conscious corrupt value system of the world.

When academia itself is deeply ingrained into a fabric of a competitive social and economic structure, where can artists go? His idealized thought on academia, as the last fortress of “sanctuary” for artists to live and work as in convents for monks to meditate does not work in our time. I wonder what he would say about “sanctuary seeking” if he were to see our reality. Could he give us an alternative thought? Could he still insist on the idea of “new academy”? Could his utopian idealism on academia be still relevant in our time? If so, where and how could we find or establish it?

b) Negation of colors:
What did he expect an artist following him to do after he painted the last painting? Was his uncomfortable feeling towards colors are his personal reaction or was it the resolution of his thought process? Can he accept an artist who paints colors in abstraction? What was his take on “post-Reinhardt” paintings and painters if the tradition of the art of (abstract) painting is to survive?
c) On his dislike of Surrealism and Dadaism:
Whenever I think of his direct linage to Malevich & Mondrian, who advocated the concept of “pure abstraction,” I stumble on his stern rejection of the idea of “the subconscious,” pushing “rational” thinking to the forefront of the thought process. Malevich did not negate the subconscious, instead he relied on it, even calling it “the superconscious”. As for Mondrian, at the end of his search, he realized it was “intuition” that an artist has to cultivate. In order to cultivate “intuition,” an artist has to learn to live in the territory where the rational and the irrational negate themselves to become nothing, which is where the spirit of “intuition” resides. In order to break down the barrier of the two, Surrealism offered a tremendous help. Reinhardt’s negation of Dadaism and Surrealism seem too rigid in its thinking to me.
d) Soetsu Yanagi
I always wonder if Reinhardt was familiar of Yanagi’s philosophy and writing? If so, what did he think of them?

ON AD REINHARDT

Part Two

Ad Reinhardt Retrospective
(at MoMA, Sept. 2, 1991)

When the Ad Reinhardt retrospective opened at MoMA in the beginning of summer, I rushed through it once, knowing that it was not the right way to appreciate the show. Some irritated feeling caused by the rushed viewing stayed in me for a long time. I hoped to give myself a righteous opportunity to see the show to examine my reaction to Reinhardt’s Art. The summer has passed quickly and today is the last day of this unique retrospective. Deciding not to miss the last chance, I find myself a little nervous.

The world which Reinhardt cultivated and searched, the world of total elimination of the subjective self, where even a small trace of something subjective or personal is totally washed out, is a territory that I feel a certain uneasy alienation toward. As an artist, I try to see the point where the subjective becomes the objective, the point the personal or the individual meets the universal through the culmination and sublimation of the self. So, for me, the self is still an important subject to explore in order to see its limit, where it disperses itself into the universal. Encountering work of Reinhardt here and there on many different occasions, I intuitively understand what he was doing quite well. But to see his search and its every result in one chronological flow is an overwhelming idea to follow. Leaving the house to catch the last day of the retrospective, I was very conscious of the tension I had inside of me.

* * *

Bypassing his cartoons and comics done in 1946, I step into the first room to have a face to a face encounter with a small work titled Abstraction (oil on canvas, 1940). Here, I witness his search of the musicality of color tones as a main physique of art. Then I get drawn into some curiosity finding that the motif he used in a small 1939 collage piece and the larger oil on canvas work done in 1938 called Number 30 are exactly the same. Usually, a small piece develops to be a larger size piece when the same motif is used. But in this case, interestingly, the order is reversed. The large size work developed back to the small piece.

The impeccable beauty of collage pieces done in 1939-40 on the other side of the wall of this room is just breathtaking. So-called color tones and the texture contents and the forms interact organically. Newsprint collages of 1940 create a biomorphic surface in monotone non-color with an indication of a sense of the infinite.

Number 18 (1946-47) already shows a so-called “Hide and Seek” phenomenon, which we are compelled to experience in his art as an actualization of Reinhardt’s philosophical search later. In this work, a certain Kleeish image and feeling dissolving into something else to create an organic cloud-film on the surface of the piece simultaneously. Or I should say, an organic cloud covers (or conceals) Kleeish elements. Calligraphy Painting of 1949-50 exhibits something typically in common with work done by other Abstract Expressionists of the same period. October (1949) is a good example to indicate the result of the search he was going through then. Something Kleeish dissolves and a new organic surface appears, followed by an emergence of a characteristic hard-edged form. This development has taken place as a result of a search for the evidence of self-existence of a painting (art). It cannot be advocated purposely and intentionally with a mechanical will by an artist.

Number 16 (oil on canvas, 1947) is an example of the result of his search on depth which later develops into the unique, non-personal world to put us into amazement. Black and White Work (oil on canvas, 1947) is nothing but beauty. The work invites a viewer to make a sigh of marvels out of the intensified emotions stimulated by the pureness and the depth of its aesthetic quality. Interestingly, I thought of Basho’s Haiku of an old pond. One dark old pond and an echo of a dark inner reflection. Form and depth. Reinhardt’s ultimate state of individuality and the universal here perfectly meet each other to become one.

From this point on, he concentrates on the search of the universal, throwing his personal individuality away all at once totally. Number 43 (1947) makes me feel peculiarly uneasy. Number 22 (1947); a vertical piece of oil on canvas shows a strong and direct influence of Cubism. Yet, here in this work, Reinhardt succeeded in eliminating narrative elements from the picture plane totally.

In the 2nd room.

Untitled (gouache on paper, 1950) shows the efforts of his search of color as self-existing evidence of painting, following the search of form for the same purpose done in the late 1940s. Another untitled piece (gauche on black paper, 1950) exhibits a sign of a departure point of change that later develops into a totally unique and solid world of Reinhardt art. Black cross emerges (floats) up. Here, we see the direction of the past and the future of Reinhardt’s art taking its own course. Strangely, his art starts to look independent from the artist himself, walking its own way. Behind the pale gray screen (film) of Abstract Painting (1950), gray, an infinity extends. This piece shows a strong musicality, yet this musicality has a sense of independence freed from the general concept of chord changes or tonality.

Brick Painting (oil on canvas, 1950) also shows the result of a certain musical study through the mass of toned-downed individual colors. Untitled (oil on canvas, 1949) shows a hide and seek phenomenon in a grayish green color that reminds me of Number 18 (1946). At the same time, a new element, a pulling power (a power to pull a viewer inside of the painting) is added to this piece making it more complete. Number 11 (1949) and Untitled (yellow and white, 1950) are another examples of the same completeness. Number 5 is literally a red wall. What is this thing: a wall? I wonder. Blue-green painting, red and gray painting of 1948 show some Kleeish patterns we saw before again. Number 14, red painting of 1950. The transitional period. One step before the opening of the new world.

The 3rd room.

MoMA shows a special sense of care, displaying information on work in a separate sheet of paper away from paintings, instead of the usual way of displaying a label next or under the work. This way, we are able to have a pure visual encounter with art. Especially in Reinhardt’s case, it is essential for a viewer to have a dialogue with his art as pure as possible. As far as we come to this room, we are forced to depart from certain kinds of our accustomed human elements that buzz around the very core of our utmost existence. An eagerness to explain everything in words; a never-ending anticipation for analysis; a sensitivity to look for a pleasurable experience – all these human elements we cherish and treasure have to be thrown away in order to be able to jump into the world of the universal Reinhardt reveals before our eyes.

Number 15 (1950) exhibits some state of being floating, or I should say, it invites a viewer to be with the sense of being wafted. Abstract Painting, Blue (1952) forces a viewer (who managed to succeed arranging the state of body and mind) to experience “Time” (Time in a universal sense) via the act of seeing. Here again, I find myself using the word force to describe the situation. A silent oppression that Reinhardt‘s art creates is nonetheless a type of oppression. His art never spoils a viewer. It demands a certain, almost Spartan concentration and sincerity of a viewer.

Abstract Painting of 1951 shows something that later grows flowering into being as the main core of his late work. It is infinitely dark, beyond description. This work makes a viewer able to experience “Space” via the act of seeing. It also has a powerful energy of “pulling” in. Blue Painting of 1951 is another interesting work. This work expresses an emotion without an emotion; an emotion beyond an emotion. Number 17 (1951). Oh, what a beauty is it! Here, we utter another voice of awe. What a sense of weight! Yet this weight does not need to carry the general sense of a superficial oppressiveness. It expresses heaviness heavier than a sculpture full of weights. Yet, this heaviness is not a physical one. It is the one of metaphysics. Blue paintings, warm-brown/gray paintings follow.

Facing these paintings, one question emerges in me again. “What is a wall?” On the left side of the room hung two more pieces of abstraction. The one with beige and gray shows a certain Kandinskyish psyche at the edge where a color meets a color.

The 4th room.

At this point, we find ourselves being in the state of “dreaming,” stepping into the unfamiliar territory of physic=metaphysics. Our willful eagerness and desire to resist, refute and analyze have been quieting down. While we are moving from the first room to the second, the third and to this (fourth) room, our emotions and consciousness have been used up. So, in a sense, when we walk into this room, we are free from those human-all-too-human elements we constantly carry inside us. Our spirits and bodies are perfectly exhausted. Here now we stand in the blue room. The room of blue paintings. 12 pieces of Abstract painting, Blue (1852-53-56): the first notion of so-called “Minimalist” Painting.

Burying oneself in these blue paintings, neatly hung in the white space, invites anyone to be in a certain mental state of the ultimate calmness. Being one with each blue painting is a religious experience of some sort. The basic uniqueness of the color “blue” itself might be causing this fusing effect. In the calmness, some hidden secrets emerge up very slowly. How much can you see? It’s all up to the ability of a viewer to “see.” It depends on the ability and the degree of pureness he or she can reach through the act of seeing. Having a face to a face encounter with each work in the purest state of mind (or the purest state of the mindfulness=mindlessness) induces one to have a dialogue or a conversation in silence to “interchange” (instead of “exchange”) with oneself. This is an act of Zen. The totality of the physical sense of the color “blue,” being one with the sense of metaphysics, faces us.

As we go through this unique experience of having a dialogue in silence with these blue paintings, something starts to happen inside of us without us noticing or feeling what it is or how it is happening. Something is definitely taking place in the territory where our lingo-logics have no purpose at all. The fact we cannot explain something in words does not make it a reason for denying its existence. When we face these blue paintings, we are temporarily freed from the general concept of Time and Space (a concept of Time and Space in human terms). Or I should say, some vastness breathing strongly behind the work does not give us any conventional chances and room to say “Yes and No” to the logic of Time and Space. What you see is what you see.

Variations of “blue” continue. Triumphantly, the blue(s) we see here show us a clear departure from the blue(s) in a narrative sense of the reality we call “Nature.” For example, the blue we see here has nothing to do with the color of the sky, the color of the ocean, the color of the lake, etc. This is what metaphysics means! Colors reveal philosophical ideas through the methodology and rules of their world. Colors burning their lives, challenge us who are so used to our false superiority of the belief that colors are just a means to decorate our lives. Not even on equal terms, they compel us with a strength that turns a position of superiority upside down. All we can do is barely manage to experience this unaccustomed encounter in a clumsy manner, almost being swallowed by the colors.

Here, the hide and seek phenomenon which we witnessed in the late 1940s work reveals itself again. This phenomenon occasionally accompanies a primal structure of rectangles that makes us somewhat think of Suprematist work. The ultimate darkness and the ultimate lightness we see here in the infinitely changing delicate color tones are clearly free from the vertical sense of values, the sense of hierarchy. Here we witness some strange (unfamiliar) facts of a perfect equality.

The 5th room.
Ten red paintings and one white painting. A group of paintings created during 1951-1954. They are called either Red Painting or Untitled in a very simple and non-personal manner. Like the blues of the 4th room, these reds have not so much to do with symbolic images and meanings of the color red that we usually associate with so-called “passion,” “emotion” or “heat” at all. The self-existence (or self-evidence) of the color triumphs over us who persistently search for analysis and logical explanations of the color. The estranged vastness grasps us. What an inspiring thing to go beyond narrative and symbolic meanings! And how much we can get from work all depends on how pure our attitude of seeing can be. One heretic in this room is a white painting. In this work created without using a typical methodology of tone-changes, everything disappears as we get closer and everything appears as we get far away from it.
The 6th room.

The certain knowledge of this room is already in me since I’d once passed through it in the beginning of summer. Yet, even so, something inside me starts to crumble all of a sudden when I stand here being surrounded with these monumental (monstrous) black paintings. An exhausting feeling occupies me. An unfamiliar sensation of scattered loneliness/aloneness makes me feel that I am thrown forcefully into something tremendous. And I am not prepared for this situation at all. I feel I’m being attacked.

Except for a few pieces titled with numbers and one work called Black Painting (1962), others are all called Abstract Painting. Reinhardt finally reached the state of being where he had no need to call black “black.” For a moment, I feel amused thinking how I would feel if I compare this room to Rothko’s chapel. This is nothing but an actualization of Time and Space! My heart is shaking with excitement, but at the same time I suffer from an unbearable sense of exhaustion. Naught. Zero. The utmost state of Nothingness.

I look at four vertical pieces of the same size done in 1956-58-60 as one group on the white wall. And then, I move my eyes to seven vertical pieces of the same size on the other wall. Something starts to creak inside me. I realize that I have reached to the limit of my ability to concentrate. I feel like I am banging my head against the wall. In order to revitalize myself by any means, I move my eyes from the paintings to the hard-wooden floor and to the white ceiling of the exhibition space. I try to empty myself. I try to forget about Reinhardt. I do not want to be swallowed by the void.

I look at the people sharing the space with me. Interestingly, viewers who step into this room wear wry smiles on their already bewildered faces. In a few seconds, they regain a seriousness trying to read something in these vastly black paintings. I remember the stories of the time when people did not conceal their confusions and showed a rude and hostile reaction to his art. Compared to some episodes of hateful viewers then, an audience today shows a certain respect, or an effort trying to get something out of the work. The eyes of the viewers in this room are innocently quiet, almost without any exceptions. Whether they like it or not, they are all involved in Reinhardt’s art. Once you are involved, there is no escaping.

This way we allow ourselves to be controlled by the power of paintings. Sound of no Sounds. Color of no Colors. Being and Nothing. Reinhardt’s art expresses an existential fact of the absolute truth of our Cosmic Existence without using any means that indicates the linkage to a territory of lingo-logics and symbolic-narratives. We have to know how to be one with our lenient selves to be in tune with his art. Otherwise, his work never talks to us. To have a dialogue with Reinhardt’s art is to gaze into oneself existing in the infinite. In other words, it is to experience having a concrete sense of your very “self” being an absolute infinite “itself.” A search in non-search. Zen. The more you use the most human methodology called “a will,” the less you get. A contradiction. To free your will. To throw yourself away. To do nothing to see something. What you see is what you see.

The exhibition space is crowded, filled with people like myself trying to catch the last chance to see this show. Yet, the busy air does not give any impediment to my senses. Abstract Paintings (60×60, 1964) even does not show a hint of his hard-edged cross. What a tremendous thing to see Being and Nothing in one! Looking at his work, we rearrange senses of our souls. Means, ends and the tools. To be one with the Cosmic Time and Space. As for me, I experience more Time than Space in his art. The experience results must vary delicately with the personal differences of the viewers.

Even though I spend extended time to see each work of the show, I still get a feeling of not spending enough time. Reinhardt’s art demands of us time equal to the eternal. Standing in the sixth room, I wonder what would happen to me if I were allowed to live here for days and nights.

Post Script:

In the hall proceeding to the main exhibition space, some sample works of his cartoons published in a magazine PM are displayed.

Panel 1: How to look at Modern Art
Panel 2: How to look at Art-Talk
Panel 3: How to look at Space
Panel 4: The portrait of an artist as Yhung Mandala*
Panel 5: Art of Life of Art

(* my mistake. His title is “the portend of the artist as Yhung Mandala)

I try to pick something interesting out of each panel.

Panel 1:

a) A difference between pure (abstract) painting and pure (illustrative) painting.
b) The roots of the family tree of modern art consisting of Cezanne, Seurat, Gauguin and Van Gogh.
c) The trunk of the family tree of modern art consisting of Picasso, Braque and Matisse.
d) A quote from Hamlet – “The time is out of joint.”

Panel 2:

A painting is not a picture.

Panel 3:

Art is science in flesh.
In frame 1, a man points at a so-called work of “Abstract Art” and says to the painting with a defiant gesture – “Ha! Ha! What do you represent?”
In frame 2, a painting talks back to the man saying – “What do YOU represent?” and knocks him down.

Panel 4:

Museum of Mode-Eden. Utopia.

Panel 5:

a) How to get ahead and keep one’s head above hot water in the world
b) Be a martyr to art and be a sure sell-out
c) Be a dope and someone will push you and someday you’ll cash in
d) Let the kindness of fate bring you fame
e) Be arrogant, be elegant, be smart, give ‘em the fist, give ‘em the wrist, give ‘em the finger

I laugh at myself finding myself being more like a type of a dope or a martyr.

Sept. 2, 1999

Post-Post-Script: Dec. 2013
Now, 20 years since this retrospective exhibition, at least, I’ve learned to be “e)”: knowing how to give ‘em the finger.