Fibreglass Scroll 2004

Albert Oehlen made "Fibreglass Scroll" using what looks like oil paint in a limited palette of grays, blacks, and whites. It's like he’s feeling out the canvas, letting each stroke inform the next. The paint application varies from thin washes that create depth, to thicker daubs that assert their physicality. There’s a tension between control and accident, especially in the drips that cascade from the curious scroll shape. Zooming in on that curl, you see how the paint almost seems to dissolve, blurring the line between form and dissolution. It feels unstable, in flux. The forms are both there and not there at the same time. It makes me think of late Guston, but with a German twist. The way Oehlen embraces mess and ambiguity is a reminder that art doesn't need to have all the answers, and often, it's more interesting when it doesn't.