I Was A Student, And As Such

When I First Painted A Number Of Canvases Grey All Over (about Eight Years Ago), I Did So Because I Did Not Know What To Paint, Or What There Might Be To Paint: So Wretched A Start Could Lead To Nothing Meaningful. As Time Went On, However, I Observed Differences Of Quality Among The Grey Surfaces - And Also That These Betrayed Nothing Of The Destructive Motivation That Lay Behind Them. The Pictures Began To Teach Me. By Generalizing A Personal Dilemma, They Resolved It.

Maybe We Didn't Even Have A Chance. The Message Of American Pop Art Was So Powerful And So Optimistic. But It Was Also Very Limited, And That Led Us To Believe That We Could Somehow Distance Ourselves From It And Communicate A Different Intention.

Of Course I Constantly Despair At My Own Incapacity, At The Impossibility Of Ever Accomplishing Anything, Of Painting A Valid, True Picture Or Even Knowing What Such A Thing Ought To Look Like. But Then I Always Have The Hope That, If I Persevere, It Might One Day Happen. And This Hope Is Nurtured Every Time Something Appears, A Scattered, Partial, Initial Hint Of Something Which Reminds Me Of What I Long For, Or Which Conveys A Hint Of It – Although Often Enough I Have Been Fooled By A Momentary Glimpse That Then Vanishes, Leaving Behind Only The Usual Thing.

I First Came Up With The Idea For The Colour-chart Pictures Back In 1966, And My Preoccupation With The Topic Culminated In 1974 With A Painting That Consisted Of 4,096 Colour Fields. Initially I Was Attracted By The Typical Pop Art Aestheticism Of Using Standard Colour-sample Cards; I Preferred The Unartistic, Tasteful And Secular Illustration Of The Different Tones To The Paintings Of Albers, Bill, Calderara, Lohse, Etc.

I Believe That The Quintessential Task Of Every Painter In Any Time Has Been To Concentrate On The Essential.