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Paint It Black

"Trägt nicht alles, was uns begeistert, die Farbe der Nacht?"
Novalis: Hymnen an die Nacht




       
 


Paul Bilhaud: "Combat de nègres dans un tunnel," 1882.
[Black canvas with gold frame; reproduced in Allais (1897)
as "Combat de nègres dans une cave, pendant la nuit" .]


Man Ray: Photo Noire, 1930.
("À Robert Desnos – plein des
choses qui absorbent la lumière")

  
 




Endre Tot: Dada-Messe in Berlin, 1989
    


 


 




Kazimir Malevich:
Black Square, 1915




Aleksandr Rodchenko:
Composition 64-68, 1918

  

 

 


Léon Tutundjian:
Sans Titre, 1928
 
      



Louise Nevelson:
Relief, 1956



Armando:
21 Bouten, 1961

 

 

 



Pierre Soulages:
Sans Titre, 1948



Arnulf Rainer:
Gitterbild, 1953

  





 


Robert Rauschenberg:
Untitled (Glossy Black Painting),
1951


Franco Bemporad:
Catrame, 1957
    


Herbert Zangs:
Schwarzarbeit, 1958



Bram Bogart: Émigré, 1959
    



Lucio Fontana: Concetto Spaciale, 1960



Mishio Yushihara: Untitled, 1959




Albert Burri: Nero Legno, 1961

 

 

 





Ad Reinhardt: Painting, 1954-1958



Hiroshi Sugimoto: Ionian Sea, 1990

Note: Reinhardt's "Last paintings" and Sugimoto's seascape photographs are not "monochromes" in the strictest sense, though they would look uniformly black to the casual glance of a passer-by. These pieces demand a very active kind of observation, which reveals (very simple) patterns, created by different tones of black. The ambiguity which constitutes their perceptual essence is impossible to reproduce through a small-scale image on a computer screen. Nonetheless, they cannot be skipped in this anthology.

          




James Lee Byars:
Untitled, 1959



Steven Parrino:
Untitled, 1995



Bernard Aubertin:
Monochrome Noir, 2000


 


 



Dick Higgins:
Black Mirror, 1959




Bernar Venet:
Relief Carton, 1964



Quentin Morris: Untitled, 1974


Richard Serra: Zadikians, 1974



Noriyuki Haraguchi:
Untitled (CD 40), 1981



Allan McCollum:
Plaster Surrogate, 1982/1991



Anish Kapoor:
At the Hub of Things, 1987



Gunter Umberg:
Untitled, 1991



Sherry Levine:
Black Mirror, 2004



Eric Doeringer:
Black Video Monochrome, 2006
     

 




More black paintings:

       Malevich & Rodchenko: From Suprematism to the monochrome.      

       Rauschenberg's monochromes (white, black, red, gold).     

       Herbert Zangs: Schwarzarbeiten.      

       Übermalung (Soulages, Rauschenberg, Rainer, Hoehme).      

       Übermalung: Soulages.

       Übermalung: Rainer.            

    




References


Alphonse Allais: Album Primo-Avrilesque. Paris: Ollendorf, 1897. [Préface.]

Denys Riout: La peinture monochrome. Histoire et archéologie d'un genre.
Édition revue et augmentée. Paris: Gallimard, 2006.