Stanley Whitney: How Black Is That Blue at Matthew Marks Gallery, Los Angeles

Stanley Whitney How Black Is That Blue	Matthew Marks Gallery 1062 North Orange Grove and 7818 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles
February 13 – April 10, 2021

Over the past four decades Stanley Whitney has relentlessly explored the nature of color, touch, and structure, producing a complex and visually engaging body of work. He has employed the same organizing system within his paintings for almost twenty years — blocks of color divided by thin horizontal lines on a square canvas — allowing him infinite possibilities to create paintings within paintings. Alive to the world around him, Whitney’s personal experiences are ingrained in his abstractions, as his wide-ranging titles suggest.

Marked by characteristically bright hues and formal clarity, these eleven works constitute How Black is That Blue, Whitney’s first full-scale exhibition in Los Angeles.

Whitney is one of those artists who connects genres and generations. His work is a touchstone, whether visually, philosophically, or both, revealing important and interesting correlations among artists ranging from abstract painters to sound artists. Whitney’s work, like his approach to the world, is expansive.

—Thelma Golden

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