Page 41 - Studio International - February 1974

(Top lett)
Installation in
Bianchini Gallery, 1967
Standard 1966-67
12 panels 48 in. square,
oil on steel
(Bottom left)
One of five panels, each
37 cm square, in the untitled
painting of double baked
enamel on plain copper, 1973.
Photo courtesy Konrad
Fischer, Düsseldorf
(Top right)
Untitled 1963-64
Vinyl paint on aluminium
9x 9 in.
(Bottom right)
Partial installation, enamel
paint on aluminium.
Konrad Fischer,
Düsseldorf, 1973

part of Ryman's periodic use of metals. The tangible goopiness outweighing the (in some `new' in the art-historical tradition of 'painting'.
regularized burnished shine of the small pieces oxidized, in others natural) copper's It is apparent in his continuous use of painting
aluminium square of 1963 'looks lighter' than reticent matte surface; and although the on canvas — 'and that's either linen or cotton,
its squares of thick vinyl paint whose juicy matte enamel paint covers more area of the stretched on a stretcher,' said Ryman in an
sculptural relief almost seems to float against its aluminium paintings — sometimes leaving only interview with Phyllis Tuchman (Artforum,
surface and (relative to its parameters) the slight edges of visible metal — one is always May 1971), 'The traditional surface for
visual 'laws of gravity'. The crisp hardness of aware of the shiny metal behind the film of painting'. 'I use it and so do most painters,
Standard's twelve square planes of cold-rolled paint: not only because of the supports' thin simply because it's the best: it's the lightest, it
steel is accentuated by its smoothly melded hardness but also because the baked acrylic can be constructed large or small, in all kinds
surface of white enamel strokes almost liquid in binder-coating is transparent and separates the of shapes.' Generally restricting himself to
their horizontal continuousness. Compared with two planes visually (as well as physically) by a square stretchers, Ryman still focuses all
the corrugated cardboard paintings — its light refracting shimmer. attention to his choice of particular materials
closest 'formalist' neighbour in Ryman's But it would be a mistake to think of Ryman's and their scale of visual interaction with each
oeuvre — Standard looks far more rigidly paper- use of metals only in terms of ironies of visual other and the environment. There are different
thin; but each panel, although eight square `weight'. He also uses metal's properties of colour, texture, and light-reflecting qualities
feet smaller than its cardboard counterpart and stiffness and density for paintings to hang as between cotton (light white, close and nubby
only ith inch thick, weighs 48 lbs : even in `pure planes' in relation to the wall — as texture) and linen (warm browner, finer
individual parts Standard is too grand to be separate and stark, without frames or flatter rougher texture); between Enamelac
hand-held. Which is not the case with the supportive stretchers. He uses the various (thin, matte, penetrating), titanium-based oil
metal works which formed Ryman's most recent visual properties of metals — their colour, paint (thin or thick, holding its grainy matter
exhibition of new work at Konrad Fischer's surface texture, and light-reflecting qualities — with a smooth but open ease), and enamel
in Düsseldorf. There, six five-panel works of as he uses other materials : the quality of (whose higher varnish content melds it into
baked enamel on copper and seven works of contrast between acrylic-surfaced shiny liquidly non-impastoed brittle-drying layers).
matte enamel paint on aluminium have the aluminium and matte enamel paint is not, after See how Ryman has accentuated these
smaller size and lighter weight which gives all, so different from that between wax paper and properties in those beautiful 9 and 10 inch
individual portability, potential intimacy. But oil-washed linen. square paintings of 1965. Enamel coats the
again the play of implicit weight against Nor is such direct use of the visual properties surface of one painting in a shining field whose
shimmer: for all its superficial high gloss, the of physical matter restricted by Ryman to metal, liquid thinness lets the fine irregularity of the
double-coated baked enamel has an almost wax paper, cardboard, vinyl — materials so painting's linen act as the texture of the paint

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