Untitled 1987

This untitled print by Karl Otto Gotz is all drama, starkly rendered in black and white. I can almost feel the artist's hand in the swooping, slashing marks, creating a sense of movement, like something exploding or perhaps imploding. I imagine Gotz, lost in the process, making quick decisions and corrections. He’s using ink or paint to chase something that only he can see. Look at those vertical lines in the center. They’re like bars, or maybe the tines of a fork, or the ribcage of a whale. It is always so strange to see how an artist is thinking, trying to get that gesture right. Gotz has a kinship with other painters who embraced spontaneity and chance, like the Gutai artists in Japan. It's like they are all in dialogue, across continents and generations, pushing the boundaries of what painting can be. This work embodies a feeling; it is the residue of an intense moment of creation. Its beauty lies in its ambiguity.