Untitled III 2000

Gunther Forg made this abstract print with, it seems, just two blocks of color, red and blue. It’s so straightforward, right? But the beauty of it is in the doing, that process. The drag of the brush, the way one color slams up against another. I find myself wondering what Forg was thinking. There’s no trickery here; the paint isn’t trying to be anything other than paint. It’s thick, opaque, and physical. You can practically feel the bristles of the brush as they glide across the surface, especially in that dominant blue section. See how the strokes are vertical? Like rain or… prison bars. That upper red area almost feels like a lid on top of all that blue angst. This reminds me of some of Sean Scully’s stripe paintings, maybe. Both artists embrace a kind of simple, almost crude approach to form, finding depth in the most basic of gestures. Art isn’t always about answers, sometimes it's just about opening up a space for questions.