Secret Painting
| Secret Painting | |
|---|---|
 Art & Language (Mel Ramsden), Secret Painting, 1967. | |
| Artist | Art & Language Mel Ramsden |
| Year | 1967 |
| Type | Painting |
| Movement | Conceptual Art |
| Location | Tate Modern National Gallery of Victoria Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art |
Secret Painting, is a series of contemporary art works by Mel Ramsden (member of the british conceptual artists' collective Art & Language) created between 1967 and 1968. These contemporary art works all consist of a monochrome painting associated with a text panel.[1]
The Secret Painting Series[]
This series of monochrome paintings is distinguished from the monochrome paintings usually produced in the field of visual arts by the accompanying block of text. This text mentions:
The content of this painting is invisible: the character and dimension of the content are to be kept permanently secret, known only to the artist.
— [2]
.
It is at the same time, a reference to the history of monochrome painting and Malevich's Black Square (1915), and an answer given by Mel Ramsden to the paintings of Ad Reinhardt[3] (1913-1967), an American painter and theoretician, a precursor of conceptual and minimal art.
Critical Analyses[]
These paintings raise the question of the status of the art object and the play that is established between the artist and the visitor in the possible revelation of a content.[4] To his great amusement, during the exhibition 1969: The Black Box of Conceptual Art Ann Stephen (PhD and Chief Curator of the University of Sydney Art Museum) said:
I've known Secret Paintings for a long time, but looking at the back, I suddenly realized that there was indeed a secret painting; there is a panel underneath with a secret painting
— [5]
.
Exhibitions[]
- Arte Concettuale, Galerie Daniel Templon, Milan, 1971
- New York Art & Language, Galeria Schema, Florence, 1974
- Early work 1965-1976, Recent work 1991-1994, Lisson Gallery, Londres, 1994
- Art & Language and Luhmann, Kunstraum Vienna, Vienne, 1995
- Art & Language, Kunsthalle St Gallen, Saint-Gall, 1996
- Then and Now, Lisson Gallery, Londres, 1998
- Materializing six years: Lucy R. Lippard and the emergence of conceptual art, Brooklyn Museum, New York, 2013
- Art & Language Uncompleted - Philippe Méaille Collection, MACBA, Barcelone, 2014
- Unpainting, Galerie d'art de Nouvelle-Galles du Sud, Sydney, 2018
- Art & Language - Reality (Dark) Fragments (Light), Château de Montsoreau - musée d'Art contemporain, Montsoreau, 2018
References[]
- ^ "Secret painting | Mel RAMSDEN | NGV | View Work". www.ngv.vic.gov.au. Retrieved 2019-05-16.
- ^ Deutsch; Français. "Secret painting, (1967-1968) by Art & Language :: The Collection :: Art Gallery NSW". www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au. Retrieved 2019-05-16.
- ^ Hopkins, David (2006). Neo-avant-garde. Rodopi. ISBN 9789042021259. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
- ^ "Conceptual art in Britain 1964-1979". Tate. April 2016. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
- ^ Galvin, Nick (2013-08-14). "Revisiting what shocked the art world in 1969". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
- 1967 paintings
- Art & Language