Lot 419 D

“Kenneth Noland's oeuvre is characterised by his struggle for pure colour painting. “The thing is to get that color down on the thinnest conceivable surface, a surface sliced into the air as if by a razor. It´s all color and surface, that´s all.“. This understanding of colour painting craves to satisfy colour as a mere surface phenomenon. However, from the outset, Noland sees himself confronted with the problem of finding adequate shapes for the colour. For colour exists as an artistic phenomenon only in the effect is has. It is thus characterised by relativity and instability and is therefore reliant on a shape by means of which it can express itself as a medium.” (Ursula Sinnreich, Farbe-Form-Licht, in: Galerie Wentzel (ed.), Kenneth Noland, Neue Bilder, Berlin 1984, not pag.).
The work Songs sunrise serenade from 1984 illustrates Noland's individual handling of colour and can be seen as a significant example for his form-finding methods rejecting any hierarchical framework of individual pictorial elements. The colouring is not bound by any system but rather all bands of colour stand equally next to one another, giving rhythm to the picture plane. The spatial quality of colour appears to be weakened; surface and colour form a unit. Working in series and concentrating on compositional structures allow the artist to systematically handle individual pictorial elements and represent an important constant within his oeuvre.