Within the early Seventies, US artist Jack Whitten underwent a dramatic change in his apply. Shifting away from the gestural method of Summary Expressionism, Whitten as a substitute developed his personal extremely revolutionary strategies that partially hid traces of his hand behind instruments and automatic processes. Three occasions are held accountable: a psychological ‘restructuring’, someplace between breakdown and breakthrough following years of overwork, a want to distance himself from the affect of the New York College and an encounter with jazz royalty, John Coltrane.
Of those, the final offers essentially the most compelling clarification for what adopted. One thing concerning the physicality with which Coltrane performed, the best way he utilised physique and breath, but in addition his means to create wealthy texture by stacking or stretching notes, sparked the concept for Whitten of surfaces that had been concurrently flat planes, however, like Coltrane’s sliding notes, contained infinite depth.
Jack Whitten, Greek Alphabet Collection, 1976
(Picture credit score: Photograph: John Berens. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth)
Utilizing improvised instruments of his personal design: combs, saws, rubber squeegees and different modified serrated devices, Whitten started raking his private mix of acrylic into parallel grooves that ran throughout the complete canvas, at instances coalescing with the imprinted types of objects he’d positioned beneath. The ensuing summary compositions, whose dense, tactile surfaces consequence not solely from scraping instruments however ice picks, polishers, drills and screwdrivers, fused Whitten’s bodily dexterity as a talented craftsman with an obsession to invent and uncover, one thing that might finally outline the remainder of his profession.
For the rest of the Seventies, Whitten relentlessly pushed the boundaries of his instruments and strategies throughout totally different mediums, from acrylic paint to paper, printer toner to timber. A number of key examples from this revolutionary decade function in a brand new exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, London. Reflecting the haptic, corporeal power that fuelled Whitten’s method throughout this era, ‘Speedchaser’ contains his famend Greek Alphabet collection, deconstructed Xerox scans, and totemic picket sculptures that he carved on the Greek island of Crete.
Following the opening of ‘Speedchaser’, and with one eye on Whitten’s main retrospective at MoMA subsequent yr, we consulted US artist Glenn Ligon and Chisenhale director Zoé Whitley on the artist’s inimitable legacy and distinctive method to materiality.
Behind Jack Whitten’s legacy
Jack Whitten in his 40 Crosby Road Studio in New York in 1979
(Picture credit score: Photographer unknown. © Jack Whitten Property. Courtesy the Property and Hauser & Wirth)
Wallpaper*: How have Whitten’s revolutionary strategies or exploration of supplies influenced your personal creative course of, particularly by way of texture and type?
Glenn Ligon: I found Whitten’s work late in my profession. He was the mentor I may have had if his work had been taught within the artwork colleges I attended within the late Seventies and early Eighties. I needed to discover him alone, and when I discovered his work, it took me some time to determine that he had one thing profound to say about abstraction and figuration and the porous line between the 2.
W*: Whitten typically engaged with the social and political realities of African American life by way of abstraction. How has his means to convey complicated cultural narratives impressed your method to incorporating textual content, historical past, and identification in your work?
GL: In 1988 Whitten made Black Monolith I, A Tribute To James Baldwin. I noticed that portray for the primary time in 2017 in a present at Hauser & Wirth, London. The portray is summary however Whitten may be very clear that the essence of James Baldwin – a author he knew personally and who was a fantastic affect on him – was ‘within the portray’. Whereas I’ve lengthy included Baldwin’s phrases in my work, Whitten confirmed me tips on how to have interaction the author’s concepts on a extra summary degree.
W*: Whitten pushed the boundaries of abstraction, typically incorporating figuration or private symbols into his work. Has his mixing of abstraction and illustration influenced the best way you juxtapose textual content, language, and imagery in your artwork?
GL: For me, textual content work I make are figurative work and summary work on the identical time. The blurring of these classes comes from enthusiastic about Whitten.
W*: Are you able to inform me about one in every of your favorite works by Whitten from the Seventies and what it means to you?
GL: There was a tremendous present of Whitten’s Greek Alphabet work at Dia:Beacon in 2022. These work had been, for me, about Whitten organising procedures and tips to make work after which disrupting the very guidelines he had arrange for himself. Artists are all the time making an attempt to steadiness management and abandon within the studio. Whitten was a grasp of that.
Jack Whitten, The Coronary heart of Humanity, 1972-1973
(Picture credit score: Photograph: Genevieve Hanson. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth)
W*: This exhibition focuses on Whitten’s transition from gestural brushstrokes to revolutionary, automated processes through the Seventies. You have referred to Whitten as ‘a voracious thinker and maker’. What about his big selection of pursuits impressed this technical and conceptual swap in apply?
Zoe Whitley: It is a massive query and an necessary one. For me, Jack Whitten is a quintessential abstractionist. Whereas he was initially influenced by figurative expressionistic gestures made by artists like Arshile Gorky when he first got here from Southern College to New York Metropolis, he wished to face the conceptual problem of shifting with, and thru, the density of paint head-on. He took the entire of his life – the great, the dangerous, the joyous and the susceptible – and distilled it by way of gesture into wondrous issues, typically comparatively inscrutable, all the time technically revolutionary. Jack knew tips on how to remodel concept into apply. He requested himself: how would possibly he make a single line right into a portray?
He restructured his studio in order that the canvas could be on the ground and he constructed a construction referred to as the ‘Developer’ that allowed him to rake acrylic paint over an enormous space in a single speedy, clean motion. That is how works like The Speedchaser had been made.
He learn a fantastic deal and sure texts he name-checked as having a transformational impact on his apply. The French thinker Gaston Bachelard wrote the Poetics of House in 1958. Bachelard was a game-changer as a result of his concepts centred on lived expertise in architectural areas; the conceptual was married to the sensation. That was one turning level. George Kubler’s The Form of Time: Remarks on the Historical past of Issues was printed in 1962. Jack famous this was one other formative textual content as a result of it shifted his understanding of time and his relationship to reminiscence, which grew to become extra free of notions of linear time. Collection like Pressed House begin to make sense in relation to Jack’s bookshelf!
Jack Whitten, Xeroxed!, III, 1975.
(Picture credit score: Photograph: John Berens. Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth)
W*: Whitten stretched the materiality of portray in a approach few others thought of earlier than him, however the ineffable and non secular had been additionally an necessary ingredient to his apply. Are you able to inform me concerning the significance of the metaphysical in his work?
ZW: Descriptors like ‘transcendent’ we have a tendency to order for spiritual work from the Renaissance, however we must be making use of them to works like Whitten’s too. That is yet one more instance of how he channelled his beliefs into actions, his religion into apply. He actually fought the great combat in opposition to evil as a civil rights freedom fighter. Non-violent motion and passive resistance takes guts. Turning the opposite cheek is one factor to examine within the Bible and one other when you’re being pushed within the face and doused with human waste. So artwork for Whitten was in some methods a refuge, not solely a personal one, however an expansive cosmology that he allowed us all to share in.
W*: How do you see the connection between Whitten’s early exploration of sculpture in Crete through the Seventies and his evolving method to portray throughout the identical decade?
ZW: With the good thing about hindsight, it appears clear he approached sculpting like a painter after which, in flip, started portray like a sculptor, embracing the brand new dimensionality on a flat floor. He discovered methods to adapt the portray palette in order that he was utilizing sculptors’ instruments on canvas. Conversely, his sculptural compositions all the time think about a playful interaction of sunshine and density, as if manipulating one thing extra malleable than the strong varieties we are literally perceiving.
W*: Are you able to inform me about your favorite work of Whitten’s from the Seventies?
ZW: It is all about old flame for me: Asa’s Palace. The portray vibrates and swallows you up in pink and purple, you then come up for air in brief bursts of yellow-grey-green. It is the portray that helped me perceive what Jack meant when he talked about resisting narrative, not ascribing which means to colors and simply letting the reality come by way of. He actually trusted every color to carry its personal.
W*: Subsequent yr will see the opening of Whitten’s first retrospective at MoMA. How would you describe Whitten’s contribution to American modern artwork and successive generations of younger Black artists?
ZW: Jack Whitten was beneficiant together with his time and his information and abilities. He was by no means boastful however he understood utterly his place as each a trainer, imparting knowledge and encouragement to youthful artists, and his parallel function as a lifelong scholar studying from writers, fellow artists and know-how. I would not prohibit his affect to anyone race, technology or group of inventive practitioners. He shifted issues for all of us: artists, curators, and thinkers alike.
Jack Whitten, ‘Speedchaser’, is at Hauser & Wirth, London till 14 December 2025
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Jack Whitten, Pressed House.
(Picture credit score: Photograph: John Berens. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth)
Jack Whitten in his 40 Crosby Road Studio in New York in 1979
(Picture credit score: Photographer unknown. © Jack Whitten Property. Courtesy the Property and Hauser & Wirth)
Supply: Wallpaper
