Blue Spot 1966

Bernard Cohen made "Blue Spot" with paint, seemingly searching for the bare minimum of what constitutes a painting. The ground of the painting looks like a creamy, tinted white - maybe that's the real subject here? I can imagine him, standing back, considering the void of the canvas, and then splat! - applying that one blue mark. It’s so lonely, but also somehow assertive. Maybe it's a failed attempt at minimalism? Or a joke, a dare? The spot feels tentative, like it might float away. It also activates all the space around it. Painters are always in dialogue with each other, even if it’s across generations. "Blue Spot" seems to be in conversation with the whole history of painting. It suggests that the possibilities within painting are endless, even when reduced to such simple elements.