Stanley Whitney

The exhibition in London shares a title with its biggest painting, which measures 8 by 10 feet. This is the largest format in which Whitney works, and its proportions break with the square format he favors elsewhere. The discipline and structure of Whitney’s method allow vivid improvisatory passages to emerge. They take the form of “call-and-response” compositions that evoke syncopated polyrhythms and unexpected chromatic harmonies. Whitney’s sonorous use of color registers beyond the visual, evoking a synesthetic merging of the senses.

The juxtaposition of warm and cool hues in Bridge (2022) conveys a high-key energy very different from the darker tones of By the Waters of Manhattan (2022). Whitney uses the same colors to define the rectilinear and lateral elements in Marina’s Garden (2022) and Walking and Wondering 2 (2022), extending them across the canvases and introducing a sense of fluidity to otherwise bounded forms. The varied application and introduction of horizontal brushstrokes aligned with selected contours throughout The Wild West (2022) speak to boundaries and openness, and to the versality of Whitney’s practice.

Gagosien will publish a fully illustrated catalogue documenting the exhibition.

Stanley Whitney: Dance with Me Henri, an exhibition highlighting the stained-glass windows Whitney was commissioned to create for the Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies at the Baltimore Museum of Art, is on view there through April 23, 2023. A major retrospective surveying his career will open in February 2024 at the future Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York (formerly the Albright-Knox Art Gallery).