Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue
| Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue I. |
|---|
| Barnett Newman , 1966 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 190.5 x 121.9 cm |
| David Geffen Collection , Los Angeles
Link to the picture |
Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue ( English for 'Who is afraid of red, yellow and blue') is a picture by Barnett Newman in four variations. It stands in the tradition of abstract expressionism and works with the effect of large monochrome color areas and stripes in primary colors .
| Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue II |
|---|
| 1967 |
| Acrylic on canvas |
| 304.8 x 259.1 cm |
|
State Gallery Stuttgart , Stuttgart
Link to the picture |
| Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III |
|---|
| 1966/67 |
| Acrylic on canvas |
| 243.8 x 543.6 cm |
|
Stedelijk Museum , Amsterdam
Link to the picture |
| Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue IV |
|---|
| 1969/70 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 274.3 x 604.5 cm |
|
State Museums of Berlin , Berlin
Link to the picture |
Picture descriptions
Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue II
The symmetrically structured image is determined by a red colored area. This is split in the middle by a thin blue stripe that runs through the picture from top to bottom. On the left and right edges, an even thinner yellow stripe runs through the red in a similar way. The artistic design - similar to the older work Das Schwarze Quadrat by Kasimir Malewitsch - has been reduced to the utmost. Newman is in a different tradition than Malevich, his painting has also been called an "abstract imagist".
In contrast to the pure gesture of the small-scale panel painting by Malewitsch, Newmann's picture affects the viewer as an object in space due to its size. The color red dominates as a calming element, but is in turn broken by the blue stripe and disturbed. The yellow stripes on the edge are only visible in the corner of your eye when you stand in front of the painting. The symmetry contributes to the intense, unsettling effect on the viewer.
The title, which refers to the primary colors red, yellow and blue, also refers to the abstract painter Piet Mondrian , who mainly used them in his later work, although the provocative title can also be understood as a challenge. Like Mondrian, Newman used tape to make the straight lines.
The variations I, III and IV
The three variations change the relationship between the color areas, but retain the three basic colors and the vertical structure through the color fields , while the order and width of the individual color fields vary.
reception
The title of the picture refers to the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee , which premiered in 1962. This in turn is based on the children's song Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?
In 1998 Irish composer Ian Wilson composed a concerto for alto saxophone and orchestra entitled Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue? In a commentary on his piece, Wilson makes explicit reference to Newman who "... gives access to the piece".
The film Who is Afraid of Red Yellow Blue , directed and screened by Heiko Schier , uses the now well-known title of Newman's picture as a hook for his film, which is set in the milieu of the contemporary Berlin art scene.
Neon - Who is afraid of red, yellow and blue is the title of an exhibition in 2012 at the Maison Rouge gallery in Paris , which shows neon art from the 1940s to the present day.
Robert Irwin's Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue is the title of his installation in the New York gallery Pace Wildenstein , 2006/07.
The 2016 play Who's Afraid of Hugo Wolf? by Herbert Fritsch is visually inspired by Newman's picture.
Damage
The fourth variation was acquired by the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin in 1982 , which led to fierce public controversy. The picture was described in the tabloids as "the work of a house painter", and director Dieter Honisch received death threats. On April 13 of the same year, a mentally ill veterinary student severely damaged the image that he felt provoked.
Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam was badly damaged by a visitor's knife on March 21, 1986. The subsequent restoration , the cost of which was estimated at three hundred to four hundred thousand US dollars and which was labeled by critics as amateurish, sparked a fierce national discussion as did the vandalism of the perpetrator, who claims to be disturbed, who in 1997 in the same place another picture of Newman damaged.
See also
literature
- Ann Temkin (Ed.): Barnett Newman . Exhibition catalog of the Philadelphia Museum of Art , Philadelphia 2002.
- Max Imdahl : Barnett Newman, 'Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III'. In: Collected Writings. Volume 1 On Modern Art . Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-518-58213-5 , pp. 244-270.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans Krabbendam, Cornelis A. Van Minnen, and Giles Scott-Smith: Four Centuries of Dutch-American Relations: 1609-2009 , State University of New York Press, 2009, accessed April 16, 2012
- ^ Edward Strickland: Minimalism: Origins Indiana University Press 2000, ISBN 978-0-253-21388-4 , accessed April 16, 2012
- ↑ Ian Wilson: Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue? Factory introduction
- ↑ Who is afraid of red-yellow-blue ?, filmportal.de ( memento from April 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) accessed on April 23, 2016
- ^ Huffington Post, March 19, 2012
- ↑ Günther Henneke: Great poetry immersed in bright colors Theater: pur in NRW, accessed on October 13, 2016
- ↑ Damien Frost (Webmaster): Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue 111 ( Memento from March 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) on artcrimes.net