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Lot Essay
‘In previous paintings Dorazio eliminated the void, filling it with a rigorous cage of signs. Now he is bringing it to the fore and his paintings are a balance between positive and negative. Even a clear and distinct structure as this one was born in the very moment of making: a painting by Dorazio isn’t a symphonic composition, but rather a “cool-jazz” piece, the next stage is always unplanned’
MAURIZIO FAGIOLO DELL’ARCO
‘These large, heraldic canvases share a dependence on original and striking colour juxtaposition, a reduction of shape-vocabulary to the simplest units and combinations, and what Clement Greenberg calls a “clarity and openness” that minimizes the importance of the frame. Because of the thinly applied or soaked pigment, areas of bare canvas or the visual destruction of flatness by colour contrasts, the picture surface – so important to the abstract expressionists – is dematerialized. The colour elements, their forms so diagrammatic as to be unobtrusive, are given maximum freedom of operation in every direction’
WILLIAM C. SEITZ
With its densely packed web of vibrantly coloured brushstrokes, Miss Kayenta is a key example of the visual dynamism of Piero Dorazio’s mature style, as he continued to explore the optical effects of pure abstraction through the delicate balance of contrasting colour and line. Originally trained as an architect, Dorazio was a pioneering figure in the Post-war Italian art scene, an active member of a variety of artistic and literary circles who engaged with a broad spectrum of diverse intellectual currents internationally. Drawing on a myriad of influences, including the School of Paris, Russian Supremativism, Italian Futurism, and Abstract Expressionism, Dorazio’s painterly style became increasingly concerned with the optical illusionism of abstract, geometric elements and the ways in which the viewer’s eye reacted to combinations of colour and form to make static graphic elements appear to oscillate across the canvas. In Miss Kayenta, the artist delicately weaves radiant bars of colour together, allowing lines of multiple orientation to converge in a thick bundle at the centre of the composition. This condensed arrangement resonates in the eye of the viewer, causing the bars of colour to appear to shift and move, vibrating towards and away from the front of the canvas as they overlap and converge on one another. Playing with the sensations of vision in this way, works such as Miss Kayenta brought Dorazio to the attention of William Seitz, curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, who invited Dorazio to participate in the museum’s ground breaking exhibition of optical art, The Responsive Eye, in 1965.
MAURIZIO FAGIOLO DELL’ARCO
‘These large, heraldic canvases share a dependence on original and striking colour juxtaposition, a reduction of shape-vocabulary to the simplest units and combinations, and what Clement Greenberg calls a “clarity and openness” that minimizes the importance of the frame. Because of the thinly applied or soaked pigment, areas of bare canvas or the visual destruction of flatness by colour contrasts, the picture surface – so important to the abstract expressionists – is dematerialized. The colour elements, their forms so diagrammatic as to be unobtrusive, are given maximum freedom of operation in every direction’
WILLIAM C. SEITZ
With its densely packed web of vibrantly coloured brushstrokes, Miss Kayenta is a key example of the visual dynamism of Piero Dorazio’s mature style, as he continued to explore the optical effects of pure abstraction through the delicate balance of contrasting colour and line. Originally trained as an architect, Dorazio was a pioneering figure in the Post-war Italian art scene, an active member of a variety of artistic and literary circles who engaged with a broad spectrum of diverse intellectual currents internationally. Drawing on a myriad of influences, including the School of Paris, Russian Supremativism, Italian Futurism, and Abstract Expressionism, Dorazio’s painterly style became increasingly concerned with the optical illusionism of abstract, geometric elements and the ways in which the viewer’s eye reacted to combinations of colour and form to make static graphic elements appear to oscillate across the canvas. In Miss Kayenta, the artist delicately weaves radiant bars of colour together, allowing lines of multiple orientation to converge in a thick bundle at the centre of the composition. This condensed arrangement resonates in the eye of the viewer, causing the bars of colour to appear to shift and move, vibrating towards and away from the front of the canvas as they overlap and converge on one another. Playing with the sensations of vision in this way, works such as Miss Kayenta brought Dorazio to the attention of William Seitz, curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, who invited Dorazio to participate in the museum’s ground breaking exhibition of optical art, The Responsive Eye, in 1965.