From Line 1974

Lee Ufan made "From Line" with paint and a brush, and maybe more than one brush. The way he pulls that pigment down the canvas, so that it fades to almost nothing is really something, isn't it? Each stroke starts with conviction up top, and then seems to evaporate. The top is resolute, and the bottom is, well, open to possibility, like how we feel some days. I love the materiality here, the way the surface is activated by the gesture. You can almost feel Ufan standing there, thinking about the mark he wants to make. There's something meditative about it. It makes me think about Agnes Martin. There's a similar quietness, but with Ufan, there's also this sense of the hand, the body, in the process. It's like he's saying, "Here I am, making this mark, and then letting it go." What else is there to do?