Tableau-Relief P 731 1974

This Tableau-Relief, P 731 by Gottfried Honegger is a grid of dark grey squares where a single extended vertical element is slightly offset. I like that. Each little square seems to have its own texture, a kind of skin, as if the artist built this painting up cell by cell. I can see Honegger carefully crafting each one, maybe even feeling a little meditative as they worked away. I wonder if he was thinking about Sol LeWitt, who was making similar grid-like structures at that time. That long, thin rectangle, though, is really odd and throws the whole thing off-kilter. But it’s kind of brilliant in that it keeps it alive, you know? It stops it from being too perfect. It's this sort of disruption that keeps me on my toes, makes me want to grab my own brushes and start pushing things around! Artists borrow and steal from one another all the time; it's how ideas evolve.