Artists pour their creativity into more than just imagery and concept; they also get innovative when

Artists pour their creativity into more than just imagery and concept; they also get innovative when it comes to materials and techniques. This leads to unexpected and endlessly fascinating discoveries when a conservator takes a close look at an artwork, such as Al Held’s Untitled (1958), a recent acquisition.From the front, this dynamic Abstract Expressionist painting is exciting to look at but traditional in structure: thick paint on a stretched canvas. The back,  however, holds a surprise. The canvas is riddled with tiny holes! The holes are of similar size, with clean edges, and all complete – there are no partial punctures. These clues point towards the holes being intentional, despite the seemingly random pattern. Gathering opinions from others in the lab was a fun process, but didn’t provide any firm answers: Did the holes serve as a guide for paint application? Were they added to aid the heavy paint in drying? Was the canvas a re-used portion of a bulletin board, or even a dart board? Unfortunately, we can’t ask the artist himself, as Al Held passed away in 2005. What we can do is document as many material clues as possible and compare this artwork to others that he has made.The paint on the front of the canvas was extruded through the holes in back, indicating that the holes were definitely present before the paint was applied. The canvas is very hard, as though saturated with a synthetic sizing material that dried solid. Varying fluorescence colors in UV indicate that additives wereused in the thick oil paint layers (possibly to help with drying, for visual effects, or workability), and these fluorescent materials have seeped through to the back of the canvas. One other painting by Al Held is in the BKM collection, and the crisp, geometry of Solar Wind III (1974), a style the artist developed later in his career, is starkly different from the vibrantly colored, gestural materials ofUntitled.The story of Untitled’s creation clearly isn’t done being discovered, and conservators and curators look forward to learning more now that the painting is part of the Museum collection.Posted by Jessica Ford -- source link

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