Quantum Wall, VIII (For Arshile Gorky, My First Love In Painting) . 2017
In the 1970s, Whitten’s experiments with the materiality of paint reached a climax – removing a thick slab of acrylic paint from its support, Whitten realized that the medium could be coaxed into the form of an independent object. Whitten used this mode of experimentation to challenge pre-existing notions of dimensionality in painting, repeatedly layering slices of acrylic ribbon in uneven fields of wet paint to mimic the application of mosaic tessarae to wet masonry. Over the course of a five decade career, Whitten’s work bridged rhythms of gestural abstraction and process art, arriving at a nuanced language of painting, which hovers between mechanical automation and intensely personal expression.
Hauser & Wirth
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