Page 29 - Studio International - February 1973

coincidence, perhaps not, many of the artists
who have drawn a particularly unique
interpretation from the grid's precise strains
are women. Agnes Martin's channels of nuance,
stretched on a rack of linear tensions which
"destroy the rectangle", are the legendary
examples of an unrepetitive use of a repetitive
medium.'11 Synonymity of form can be
achieved either by the use of grids or by the
accretion of small forms and to the extent that
women artists use grids Martin is a probable
influence on their practice. There may be a
factor special to women and that is their recent
willingness to use domestic techniques, such
as sewing and pleating, to make searching works
of art. Martin implies this kind of technique
by painted forms that resemble stitching and by
forms like the motifs on Indian textiles. On the
other hand, there is the fact that Martin's
series of square canvases, starting in the late
50s, not only anticipate Ad Reinhardt's series
of black squares, 1960-66, but rival him in the
pursuit of a subversive equilibrium. Sol
LeWitt's pencil drawings on the wall may be an
extrapolation of Martin's incorporation of the
pencil into painting, with the optional
interpretation of instructions on what to draw
acting in the same way that varieties of manual
pressures do in Martin's work.
Aside from the possible reach of her influence,
aside from her gradual incorporation into the
art history of the day, in one of her notes Martin
wrote :
The silence on the floor of my house
Is all the questions and all the answers that
have been known in the world.
The sentimental furniture threatens the
peace.
The reflection of a sunset speaks loudly of
days.12
The priority of floor to furniture is a pungent
way of stressing Martin's concern, both
imperious and factual, with dominant and
whole systems. q
An Agnes Martin retrospective is at the
Institute of Contemporary Art, University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, until i March.
'Agnes Martin, in 'Homage to the Square'. Art in
America, July-August, 1967. p. 55.
'Joseph E. Young, review of exhibition at Nicholas
Wilder Gallery. Art International, March, 197o.
pp. 85-86. Peter Plagens, review of exhibition at
Nicholas Wilder Gallery. Artforum, April, 1970.
p. 86.
'Max Kozloff, 'Art'. The Nation, 14 November, 1966.
'D. W. J. Corcoran: 'Pattern Recognition'. Baltimore,
1971. p. 18. The term 'stimulus domain' is taken
from this book, also, p. 55.
'Willard Gallery, Agnes Martin, typescript.
'Ibid.
'Ibid.
'E. H. Gombrich, 'Visual Metaphors of Value in
Art'. Meditations on a Hobby Horse. Greenwich,
Connecticut, 1963. pp. 12-29.
'Agnes Martin, unpublished MS.
"All the quotations in this paragraph are taken from
a collection of undated manuscript notes by the
artist, made available to me by Ms Suzanne
Delehanty.
11Lucy R. Lippard, 'Top to Bottom, Left to Right'.
Grids. Exhibition catalogue. Institute of
Contemporary Arts, University of Pennsylvania,
1972.
12Agnes Martin, unpublished MS.
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