Letter with Red 2009

Brice Marden’s "Letter with Red" is a meditation on line and color, made with what looks like ink and paint, a conversation starter, really. The surface has a kind of casualness, a generosity. Look at how the red and black lines dance and weave, creating a calligraphy of sorts. It's not about perfect shapes but about the energy of the gesture, the thickness and thinness of the lines, they're all part of the story. The paint is applied with an openness, there’s a feeling of immediate, unfussy mark-making, like he’s letting the materials speak. That scribble there at the bottom right corner has the feeling of Cy Twombly in it, it's like these guys are exchanging notes, sharing ideas across time and space. Marden’s art invites us to embrace ambiguity, to find beauty in the unresolved.