Louis Cane in the 70s

The International Journal of the Image, 2020

For several centuries, the most common Western painting format was a stretched (and primed) canvas. From the end of the sixteenth century until the middle of the twentieth, the canvas by and large remained attached to a wooden frame and preparatory layers were applied. In this article, I examine some of the consequences and possibilities that arise from the absence of one these two components: the stretcher. I look at uses of raw and unbound canvas during the painting process, particularly at the way they changed the position of the artist’s body with regard to the canvas support and tools. The shift between stretched and unstretched modified the painter’s stance (from parallel to the support, to perpendicular or crossed, inducing a downward view) and introduced an awareness of the body and of the support. It modified the relationship between the painter and the canvas, so that the handling of the canvas became a component in painting techniques. I also emphasize that the removal of the stretcher opened up possibilities that continue to foster artistic inquiry.

Allan McCollum: Works 1968-1977, 2017

Since Allan McCollum decided to become an artist in 1967, his practice has centered on an insistent drive to demystify the process of art making. "Every project I've done," he stated in a 2001 interview, "has been an inquiry into what it is we look for in an artwork and an attempt…to relativize that process and put it into context with other objects that accomplish similar results." 1 As a self-taught Los Angeles-based painter in the 1960s, McCollum learned about contemporary art by culling information from art magazines, museums, galleries, and his practical experiences as an art handler. He freely experimented with a hybrid mixture of methods and techniques, describing his approach at this time as "a cross between post-painterly abstraction and post-minimalism." 2 Although well-received in the Los Angeles art scene of the late 1960s and 1970s, McCollum's early forays into painting in the form of his Bleach and Constructed Paintings are less known than his subsequent series of Surrogate Paintings (begun in 1978) and Plaster Surrogates (begun in 1982). His earliest paintings represent a vital transitional moment for the artist, linking him to the formalist dialogues of the 1950s and 1960s while anticipating his growing preoccupations with the issues of serial production and strategies of display evinced in his Surrogates and beyond. At the same time, these canvases offer intriguing perspective on the dominant discourses surrounding abstract painting in the beginning of the 1970s and McCollum's aspiration to test and strain them.

Curator's essay, pdf version for the Camberwell Space exhibition A History of Drawing 16 January - 16 February 2018.

Getty Research Journal, 2018

This essay discusses the development of abstract painting in the twentieth century through the lens of artistic process. Before the invention of pressure-sensitive tape in the United States in the 1930s, abstract painters were limited to creating the straight edges of geometric forms by either applying paint freehand or by using tools such as straightedges and ruling pens. But whether abstract artists embraced the use of such aids, which resulted in a more industrial aesthetic, depended initially on whether they considered their artworks agents of spiritual cognition, as Wassily Kandinsky did, or agents of social transformation, as Aleksandr Rodchenko maintained. After tape became more widely available in the late 1940s, Piet Mondrian and Barnett Newman incorporated it into their respective repertoires. While Mondrian never used tape for painting his bands, Newman developed such a mastery of applications that he effectively voided the dichotomy of earlier ideological debates. The essay also addresses technical issues in the work of Paul Klee, Josef Albers, Harry Holtzman, Burgoyne Diller, Mark Rothko, Bridget Riley, Jo Baer, Agnes Martin, and Richard Lin.

2001

beyond-the-easel-decorative-painting-by-bonnard-vuillard-denis-androussel-18901930-exhibition-and-catalogue.

2021

This research paper has been much developed and is currently projected to appear in a co-authored book, due to come out in [2024?]

Advanced Materials Research, 2013

Paper discusses large size canvas paintings stretching methods, deformations and damages specific for large canvas resulting from an incorrect stretching. The case study of M. H Loder's painting "Adoration of the Magi" (XVIII c.) from the cathedral Saint -Aubain in Namur (Belgium) is presented. Analysis of the preservation state of a wooden stretcher construction and its functionality was an important step in development of the program of conservation work. The painting is exhibited 5,5 m above the floor and has a unique shape, as the wooden stretcher frame is adjusted to the round apse walls. Thus usual direct inspection was difficult due to poor access to the reverse side of the painting. Preliminary conclusions on the construction and preservation state of the stretcher frame were drawn on the basis of a thorough inspection of the painting surface. Actual shape of the painting and stretcher's dimensions were measured with a laser scanner. More information concerning the stretcher frame construction was obtained from a simple micro-camera system combined with LED lighting introduced from the canvas reverse side.

As an artist, I was intrigued by the idea of using my paintings to show something real and something hidden simultaneously. I started to think about what would happen if I took a piece of canvas and wrapped it around an object and only painted the exposed parts. When unfolded, it would become a portrait of the object fragmented into pieces; the actual folds would appear as white space. “Aha, that must be a unique idea,” I thought! Before delving into a new method of work, I decided to learn more about the history of the fold as a method of painting. I turned to French painters Simon Hantaï and André-Pierre Arnal, who, since the sixties, have used the fold as a process in their paintings. In this essay, I will compare two paintings by these artists: Etude, by Simon Hantaï in 1968 (Figure 1), and Dans la vague by André-Pierre Arnal, painted in the same year (Figure 2). At first, these two paintings seem very similar; they share the color blue and folded patterns. However, after giving a close look at the personal backgrounds, the historical contexts, and the intents of the two artists, it is possible to discern very clear difference`s.

Art Journal, 2020

Science and Art