Abstract
This paper explores the role of mechanical devices in invoking self-referential and collective contingency within the context of global postwar abstraction, focusing on Jasper Johns’ circle paintings and Gerhard Richter’s squeegee works. In the pursuit of ‘absolute integrity’ in his circle paintings, Jasper Johns stages a dual causality bound to the device that scrapes the circle. The first layer of causality is acknowledged through the centering of the circle and the integration of the scraping apparatus into the painted surface. The second lies in the autonomy of the scraping device, which determines the painting’s frame and dimension. Scraping itself enacts an infinite flattening—an extension of Johns’ rejection of the figure-ground hierarchy. His engagement with the scraping process and devices reflect a transition from modernist to postmodernist preoccupations with materiality, positioning painting as a self-referential surface. The investigation with mechanicity extends to Gerhard Richter and his use of the squeegee in abstract painting, a process that is arduous, repetitive, and durational. For Richter and his fellow German postwar artists, they strive for a reconciliation of ethical transcendence and the collective guilt of horrors from the Nazi regime. Richter’s labor-intensive squeegee technique can be interpreted as a redemptive effort. Beneath the thick paint dragged by the squeegee often lie images related to the Holocaust, such as Birkenau (2014). Abstraction, as mediated through Richter’s squeegee technique, functions as a mnemonic representation of the Holocaust: it represses the horror beneath its layers while simultaneously marking the absence of what it hides.
Presenters
Anna XieStudent, Master's of Art, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Abstraction, Painting, Postwar Art, Jasper Johns, Gerhard Richter, Modernism, Postmodernism
