Figure 2
Robert Irwin
b. 1928, Long Beach, California
No Title
1966-67, Acrylic on aluminum with four electric lights, 48×43
By the late 1960s, Robert Irwin had become dissatisfied with the limitations of his abstract paintings. “How do I paint a painting that does not begin and end at an edge,” he asked,” but rather starts to take in and become involved with the spave or environment around it?”
Irwin’s No Title is a slightly convex aluminum disk about 2 1/2 inches deep and sprayed with acrylic paint. Cross-lit by four low-intensity incandescent spotlights, the disk appears to dissolve into the light, flattening and merging with the pattern of overlapping lights and shadows cast on the wall behind it. With prolonged viewing, the shadows become as pronounced and significant as the light in this elaborate environment.
The disk paintings marked a major turning point in Irwin’s work, eliminating traditional distinctions between negative and positive space and two- and three-dimensional art forms. Light allowed him to transcend the physical boundaries of painting on canvas and move into the natural environment.
After producing these works, Irwin ceased painting with traditional materials altogether. For him, art exists not in the making of objects but in the act of inquiry and the process of seeing.
–Beth Venn and Cathy Kimball
Photograph: ©1998, Whitney Museum of American Art
Artwork © Robert Irwin.