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拍品专文
Held within the Matthys-Colle collection since 1975, Robert Mangold’s 4 Squares within a Circle 2, 1974, is an absorbing example of the artist’s celebrated series Square Within a Circle. The early 1970s were productive years for the artist during which he had major exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. In 4 Squares within a Circle 2, the smooth surface of the large yellow circle is shattered by the titular four squares which Mangold delicately outlined in graphite. Disrupting expectations of space and geometry, 4 Squares within a Circle 2 forces a confrontation with and a reassessment of the inherent flatness of painting. For Mangold, painting possesses an inherent potency to interrogate its own materiality: as the artist later reflected, ‘I realized what painting’s unique reality was: neither object nor window. It existed in the space in between’ (R. Mangold quoted in S. O. Mangold, ‘An Interview with Robert Mangold’, in A. C. Danto et al., Robert Mangold, London, 2000, p. 60).
Mangold emerged in the 1960s art world after completing his studies at Yale University. There he was taught by Joseph Albers, whose singular dedication to colour and perceptual flux would prove influential for the young artist. Like his teacher, Mangold too shares an investment in optical ambiguity, and both, in different ways, endeavoured to ‘increase the expressive power of art by reducing its means’ to the simplest of structures (P. Schjeldahl, ‘Art That Owes Nothing to ‘Nature’, But Everything to Man Himself’, New York Times, 28 November 1971, p. D21). For Mangold, these architectural compositions aligned closely with the tenets of the then-bourgeoning Minimalist art movement, and similarly to his contemporaries, these works are autonomous, self-contained and atemporal. Indeed, his paintings suggest manifold possibilities; these works are purposefully open-ended. The graphite tracery in 4 Squares within a Circle 2 is ‘neither a limit nor a totalizing conclusion’ but rather an unresolved proposition, as tangible as the horizon, as expansive as the atmosphere (R. Schiff, ‘Autonomy, Actuality, Mangold’, Robert Mangold, London, 2000, p. 8).
Mangold emerged in the 1960s art world after completing his studies at Yale University. There he was taught by Joseph Albers, whose singular dedication to colour and perceptual flux would prove influential for the young artist. Like his teacher, Mangold too shares an investment in optical ambiguity, and both, in different ways, endeavoured to ‘increase the expressive power of art by reducing its means’ to the simplest of structures (P. Schjeldahl, ‘Art That Owes Nothing to ‘Nature’, But Everything to Man Himself’, New York Times, 28 November 1971, p. D21). For Mangold, these architectural compositions aligned closely with the tenets of the then-bourgeoning Minimalist art movement, and similarly to his contemporaries, these works are autonomous, self-contained and atemporal. Indeed, his paintings suggest manifold possibilities; these works are purposefully open-ended. The graphite tracery in 4 Squares within a Circle 2 is ‘neither a limit nor a totalizing conclusion’ but rather an unresolved proposition, as tangible as the horizon, as expansive as the atmosphere (R. Schiff, ‘Autonomy, Actuality, Mangold’, Robert Mangold, London, 2000, p. 8).