02. ‘USE-AS-IS’ | Reinhardt

Ad Reinhardt at The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York, 1 June 1991 – 2 September 1991

Link: https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/338?#installation-images

Discovered text (extract):

Copied from originals in Georgetown University Library Washington, D.C. WARNING Not to be reproduced, published or deposited elsewhere without permission.

[Sunday 19 January 2014]

There is just one artist always,

There is just one artist-as-artist in the artist, just one artist in the artist-as-artist.

…

There is just one thing to be said, one thing not to be said.

– Ad Reinhardt: ‘There is just one painting (Art-as-Art Dogma, Part XII)’, Artforum, March 1966

[Saturday 27 June 2020]

Think I am realising that (for me) there have only ever been three painters, and that these three painters established the territory I wanted to work in:

Braque / touch and the ‘particular’ (‘didactic’, as de Francia said)

Leger / scale and the ‘general’ or ‘universal’ (‘classical’, as de Francia said)

Reinhardt / “Only blankness, complete awareness, distinterestedness; the “artist-as-artist” only, of one and rational mind, “vacant and spiritual, empty and marvelous,” in symmetries and regularities only; the changeless “human content,” the timeless “supreme principle,” the ageless “universal formula” of art, nothing else.” (as Reinhardt did say in ‘Timeless in Asia’, Art News, January 1960).

Yes, particularly that last bit:

1. the changeless “human content”

2. the timeless “supreme principle”

3. the ageless “universal formula” of art, nothing else.

So, yes…

Reinhardt / the changeless / the timeless / the ageless.

Reinhardt / “human content” / “supreme principle” / “universal formula” of art, nothing else. In short, Reinhardt fucks with time while the other two “farm space” (to quote Gampopa).