Smolbeck 1956

Karl Otto Götz made *Smolbeck* with paint, likely in the mid-twentieth century, and look at the way he throws that stuff around. It's a black and white painting where the paint just explodes. It is all process, all movement. The surface is alive with texture. You can almost feel the speed of the brushstrokes, the flick of the wrist, the splatters frozen in time. Where the paint is thick, it catches the light. Where it’s thin, it disappears into the white of the canvas. See that dark, almost violent slash of black on the upper right? It's like a tear in the fabric of the painting. But it's also beautiful. Götz reminds me of Franz Kline, another master of black and white energy. But where Kline feels architectural, Götz is more like a force of nature. Art is never just about what you see, it's about how it makes you feel, right?