Spitz 1991

Curator: Bernard Frize's immense painting, "Spitz," presents us with looping lines that feel almost digitally rendered, despite their clear materiality. Editor: I'm immediately struck by its lightness, that pastel palette against so much white space. It's almost ethereal, but with a knotted energy. Curator: It's fascinating how Frize allows the paint to both define and dissolve the forms. The production of these ribbons surely involved careful layering and control of viscosity. Editor: It makes me think about gendered notions of craft and the historical devaluation of so-called decorative arts, of labor-intensive processes dismissed as merely ornamental, not serious art. Curator: Indeed. Frize's large scale challenges that hierarchy, demanding we consider the process, the labor, and the sheer volume of material. Editor: Ultimately, "Spitz" invites us to question not just the ‘how’ of its making, but also the ‘why’—why these forms, this scale, this tension between control and chance?