Page 41 - Studio International - March 1974

Revision paintings and the installations of
paintings stuck directly to particular walls.
Ryman's first public exhibition of paintings
stapled or painted directly on to the wall was in
1967: two paintings in the almost forgotten
A. M. Sachs Gallery CA Critic's Choice' —
Lucy Lippard — exhibition). These paintings
could almost be considered as 'prototypes' for
the wide range of subsequent work
classifiable as being either painting-on-surface-
on-wall or more plainly paint-on-wall.
Without the object 'distinction' from the wall of
a stretcher's three-dimensionality, all these
paintings' relationships with their exhibition
wall is particularly discreet: the 'edge' of their
parameters carries an unusually risky load of
their success or failure as works.
Among the paint-on-surface-on-wall
paintings there are two important groups : the
oil-on-linen squares stapled directly to the wall
in Heiner Friedrich's Gallery in 1968, and the
`tape removal' paintings on fibreglass and
mylar exhibited at the Konrad Fischer and
Yvon Lambert galleries in 1969. In all these
works, the character of the 'frame' for the
support-surface was of marked importance.
In the Heiner Friedrich exhibition, the similar
(98 inches square) size of the linen acted as a
unifying structure of the 'general' nature of
paint-on-canvas : and each of the six paintings
was distinguished by a particular 'frame' applied
directly adjacent to the cloth and on the wall
itself. Blue chalk lines were drawn parallel
to the linen edges (Orrin) or diagonally from
one top corner (Impex); adhesive tape was
used to perpendicularly 'dot' the
circumference of Exeter, and to duplicate — in a
larger square filled with the wall-as-frame — the
circumference of another; the wax-paper of
Adelphi and swath of yellow paint framing
Essex connected them to their surrounding
walls with soft extensiveness quite different
from the austerity of Orrin and Impex. And
although almost all these paintings have found
`permanent' homes in public and private
collections, they continue to exist fully only in
exhibition-installation dependent on the
artist's (and collectors') care: a care beyond the
usual preservation of a paint-surface — the
careful re-creation of the distinctive frame as an
integral part of the painting.
In the 'tape removal' paintings on fibreglass
(Fischer), Mylar (Lambert) and vinyl (the
five- panel prototype painting for the two
exhibitions), Ryman's procedural facture was
essentially the same : the material surface taped
to the wall; then paint applied in horizontal/ (Top)
vertical coats evenly across the material Installation, Yvon Lambert Gallery, 1969
surface, tapes, and on to the wall itself; the tape (Bottom)
removed, baring the underlying `support'- Orrin, 1968
Oil on linen with blue chalk frame, 62 x 62 in.
surface of the painting in a sort of visual Coll: Herman & Henriette Van Eelen, Amsterdam
punctuation not dissimilar to Exeter's framing
`composition'. But in these paintings, the frames
were more integrated with both the paint
surface itself and the specific time of initial
exhibition. For it is the paint-surface itself
which is the frame, supporting the 'support' by

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