Hydra Study
Brice Marden
Description
March 28, 2009
In Hydra Study, Marden weds the geometric structures and systematic focus of Minimalism to an insistence on the hand-made. This combination creates a series of ambiguities: Marden’s formal vocabulary is rigorously geometric, yet traces of the artist’s hand are visible; and while the drawing’s internal structure both reflects and reiterates the shape of its pictorial support, it also references architectural forms on the Greek island of Hydra, where the artist has summered since the mid-1970s.
Marden often worked on such drawings over long periods of time, applying layer upon layer of graphite and wax, gradually building up rich, sensuous surfaces on the paper. Reflecting back on the process in 1997, Marden noted that, “There was a tedium [that] was almost meditative.” And while his drawings sometimes evolve into paintings, for Marden a drawing is not “just a study or something on the way toward something else,” but rather “a complete experience in itself.”
Subject Matter:
The piece is about the interplay of its elements: the interplay of dark and light, glossy and matte surfaces, within the pulsing form of nested rectangles.
Physical Description:
At the outer edge a long black rectangle composed of graphite and wax extends upward. Within this border is a white rectangular stripe, following the same arc as the outer black rectangle, which is exposed Arches heavy white paper. An inner black stripe sits at the composition's center composed of the same wax and graphite.
Usage Rights:
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