we are an unnatural animal
Frank Stella
Are the colours of modern society, un-natural? The argument made thoughout a recent exhibition at Tate Liverpool is that off-the-shelf colour (their term: ready-made colour) can’t be found in nature. Surely man invented the hyper-active, vibrant colours of such stuff as cars, signs and iPods. Wouldn’t their alien surface properties have to be natural because, well, we’re natural, aren’t we?
The theme threaded throughout the show, “Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today” is the absolute nature of modern colour, and in this case the reference is to the commercial type - the cans you buy off the shelf. In fact, for some pieces the point is that colour itself is art, not to be subsumed by a larger spiritual, cultural, or political meaning.
I love the suggestion made at the event, because I found myself liking many of the works simply because they were colourful. The argument could be made that modern colour itself is more pleasurable than the shapes and forms constructed by contemporary artists. In fact, rather than constructing the cliche vitrine with this year’s dead farm animal, I wish Damien Hirst would just write down the colours he’s thinking about at the time, and paste the Pantone list onto a stretched canvas. I’m willing to bet it would be an improvement.
Ellsworth Kelly
Man invented machine with his hands, the productive results from which are no more than extensions of man himself. Andy Warhol claimed he wanted to be a machine, and I think he was successful in his search. Showing that machine paint applied through a machine process (silk screening) by a Factory employee suggests colour might be only one element to the finished work. If post-mid-century colour is un-natural, then so are we humans.