Untitled (1.1.99) 1999

Sean Scully made this Untitled painting on the first day of 1999, though you can’t tell the date from the painting, can you? What I mean is, the date doesn’t tell you how to read the painting. It is a work of blurred blocks, stacked in uncertain ways, its edges are porous and softened. It is color that makes this painting sing, those muddied tones have an intensity all their own. The painting gives the impression of having been dragged into being. See that orange rectangle, sitting adjacent to a murky brown? You can sense the presence of the artist's hand, the pressure exerted to push that pigment across the surface. The materiality is right there on the surface, it is so important, it shapes how we feel looking at it. Scully, like Agnes Martin, finds that a basic structure, like the grid, can be a kick-off point, not a finish line. We find the meaning through how we respond, and what we bring to the piece ourselves.