b. Long Beach, California, 1928
Untitled
1963–1965
Oil on canvas on shaped wood veneer frame
82 1/2 × 84 1/2 × 6 3/4 in. (209.6 × 214.6 × 17.1 cm)
Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 2007. The Panza Collection (07.53)
© 2021 Robert Irwin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Cathy Carver
In the 1960s, Robert Irwin began to create artworks that explore the limits and variability of perceptual experience, an interest he shared with other Los Angeles–based artists whose practice was loosely categorized under the term “Light and Space art.” From a distance, Untitled appears to be a blank canvas. As one approaches the painting, however, it reveals thousands of tiny dots, each painstakingly applied by the artist in complementary colors that, when perceived, mix optically and cancel one another out. Moreover, the dots are more diffuse toward the periphery, so that, in tandem with the painting’s unusual convex structure, the edges of the canvas are deemphasized and the boundary between object and surrounding space obscured. Hovering between presence and absence, Irwin’s work rewards persevering beholders by encouraging them to become cognizant of the subjectivity of their own perceptual processes.
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