Robert Ryman

Galerie Lelong, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 1989

New York, Dia Art Foundation, Robert Ryman, October 1988 - June 1989, p. 31, illustrated

Pat McCoy, "Robert Ryman," Arts Magazine 63, no. 8, April 1989, p. 77 (text reference)
Exh. Cat., London, Tate Gallery (and traveling), Robert Ryman, 1993, p. 222 (London and New York) and pp. 242-243 (Madrid) (text reference)

This painting is in excellent condition. Under UV light, there are no apparent restorations. The work is not framed.
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In 1987 the Dia Art Foundation opened in Chelsea with the idea of engaging single artists in long term projects. One of the first artists approached to inaugurate the space was Robert Ryman, who was asked to consider the sky-lit spaces on the fourth floor of the building. Ryman ultimately arrived at a plan to arrange the space in five galleries that would accommodate the work of 1988, including Duration, as well as seven selected works dating back as early as 1965 that informed this current body of work. Ryman has always been concerned with surface, color, scale, and its relationship to the architecture and the light-filled Dia Art Foundation space gave him an opportunity to consider all of these aspects. This Dia installation of 1988 works was not only a watershed suite for Ryman, it was one of the most critically acclaimed exhibitions in Dia's history and for many the most memorable use of the Chelsea space.

In the 1988 Dia exhibition catalogue Robert Ryman discussed with Gary Garrels, then Director of Programs, scale, surface, color and the relationship to architecture of Duration and the 1988 works. The catalogue also re-printed a crucial 1969 interview with Phyllis Tuchman that first appeared in Art in Process, vol. IV (New York, Finch College Museum of Art):

P[hyllis] T[uchman]: Do you make White Paintings?
R[obert] R[yman]: No, it may seem that way superficially, but there are a lot of nuances and there's color involved. Always the surface is used. The grey of the steel comes through; the brown of the corrugated paper comes through; the linen comes through, the cotton... all of those things are considered. It's really not monochrome painting at all. The white just happened because it is a paint and it doesn't interfere. I could use green, red, yellow, but why? ...I make paintings; I am a painter. White paint is my medium....

PT: Do you prefer using a square format?
RR: That's pretty important. That seems to be the most perfect space. If you have an equal-sided space and you're going to put paint on it and do something with it, then it seems like the most perfect space. I don't have to get involved with spatial composition, as with rectangles and circles or whatever.....

PT: Are the walls on which the paintings are placed related to the works?
RR: when you see the wall, the setting, the environment, it has a lot to do with the way they work. A lot of my paintings.....cannot really be shown to anyone in the usual way of dragging a painting out of the closet or the storeroom and saying: here's a painting. My paintings wouldn't work that way. You can't drag a Flavin, for instance, out of the closet and say: here's a Flavin. All you would see is a couple of tubes. It has to be on the wall, in a situation. Then it's complete....

(in Exh. Cat., New York, Dia Art Foundation, Robert Ryman, 1988, pp. 16-19 and 20).

 

Robert Ryman and Gary Garrels discussing Duration, 1988:

R[obert]R[yman]: .....The next one is Duration. This was one of the first ones [in the group of 1988 paintings]. It's on linen and on the fiberglass. This is quite different here.
G[ary]G[arrels]: What is on the edge here? It looks like it has been painted.
RR: Right. It is the same epoxy as on the other, except here, I took the red away. With the red gone, I could have a thin somewhat nebulous brown line which stood away from the wall plane.
GG: So that's the same paint on the epoxy side that's on the surface, the Lascaux acrylic?
RR: Yes it is. And then the paint on the surface plane comes to the edges at the middle of each side and it leaves the corners where the fasteners are.....
GG: Where does "Duration" fit again in terms of a sequence of the work?
RR: This is one of the first ones. It's very soft, done with a knife and a brush.
(Ibid., p. 29)