Robert Ryman - Contemporary Art Part I New York Thursday, November 15, 2007 | Phillips

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  • Provenance


    Acquired directly from the artist

  • Catalogue Essay

    Robert Ryman’s starting point was, by his own admission, ‘naïve.’ As apracticing artist, Ryman remains the equal, not the all-knowing teacher, ofthe curious spectator. His extraordinary ability to renew his art depends notupon his outgrowing that naiveté but upon heeding its dictates. The neartautological principles he has offered in explanation of his work express thatsingle-minded devotion to ‘elementary’ pursuits. ‘I wanted to paint the paint,you might say,’ he once told and interviewer. An early formal statement ofthis aesthetic published is scarcely more complicated, but resolute andsufficient. ‘There is never a question of what to paint, but only how to paint.The how of painting has always been the image.’ (R. Storr, “Simple Gifts,”Robert Ryman,Tate Gallery, London, 1993)While there are many points of entry into the world of Modern art, Ryman’swas no doubt unique. Although lacking any classical training as a painter,the period from June 1953 to May 1960 provided Ryman with a comprehensive,if informal, introduction to the work of Moderism’s masters while he servedas a security guard at NewYork’s Museum of Modern Art. Inspired by theartwork that surrounded him, Ryman went on to become one of hisgeneration’s foremost abstract painters, and while his chosen style, themonochrome, suggests the influence of artists such as Kasimir Malevich,Ad Reinhardt,Yves Klein, Frank Stella, and Mark Rothko, Ryman’s approachto monochromatic abstraction is the result of markedly different intentions.The precedent for monochromaticism was generally pedagogical in nature,often to the point of pedantry: one-color abstraction as the ultimate prooffor a historical theory of painting’s development; monochromatic paintingsas evidence in debates surrounding color theory, and so on. Ryman’s careerlongexploration of variations on the white monochrome, however, does nottake as its subject the essence of whiteness or even the concept of themonochrome itself. Rather, it is painting itself, the infinite variations on theliteral process of applying paint to a surface that obsesses him, and theproducts of his endless experimentation, far from dabbling in theoreticaldidacticism, are meant to function as experiential triggers for a state ofenlightenment in their audience.“I don’t think of myself as making white paintings. I make paintings; I’ma painter.White paint is my medium….The poetry of painting has to dowith feeling. It should be kind of a revelation, even a reverent experience. Ifyou can tune into the frequency of what you are experiencing, you comeaway feeling very good, you feel sustained….Whether it is abstract ofrepresentational, that’s what [painting] is, that’s what it does. Every thingelse about it—the why of it, the what and the when—the technical aspect ofit is interesting and necessary for deeper understanding. But that’s not thepurpose, or the goal of painting.The primary experience is that experienceyou receive of enlightenment,” (ibid).Selection, 1999-2002, is one of Ryman’s later works, and like its predecessorsit must be seen in person, from every possible angle, to be truly appreciatedin all its profundity.The play of light across the white surface, the baresthint of brushstrokes, the coyness with which it both hints at and concealsthe process by which it was created: all these are the hallmarks of a Rymanmasterpiece.The most important characteristic of any Ryman painting,however—and Selection is no exception—is the almost Zen-like sense oftranquility, transcendence and sensual pleasure it imparts to the viewerpatient enough to become fully absorbed by it.“Seemingly absolute in the moment of experience, true pleasure demands tobe repeated as soon as that moment passes, and just as soon we know thatthe means of finding it again have already changed.The paradox of pleasureis that the feeling desired is ever the same in its totality, but the source ofthat feeling can never be the same twice. So it is with painting. Accordingly,Ryman has pursued the pleasures of proportion, light, touch, color, andspace in a completely intuitive manner—since intuition, not reason, is theonly faculty capable of measuring its fulfillment. And he has been generousin this endeavor. Painting after painting, Ryman provides us an ecstatictranquility that is constant in its intensity because subtly but constantlysurprising us in it guise.We have only to accept that offer,” (ibid).

52

Selection

1999-2002
Oil on canvas.
30 x 30 in. (76.2 x 76.2 cm).
Signed, titled and dated “Ryman 9902 ‘Selection’” on the overlap.

Estimate
$800,000 - 1,200,000 

Sold for $1,497,000

Contemporary Art Part I

15 Nov 2007, 7pm
New York