Comments on: Winters Lakes: Terry Winters at Matthew Marks

By: Ann Knickerbocker

Ann Knickerbocker — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:06:24 +0000

I love that you “miss the crippling doubt of the early work” by Winters. This was an excellent, felt review. I came here because Sharon Butler recommended this essay, and I am very glad she did. Thank you.

By: David Brody

David Brody — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:43:53 +0000

Winters’s thirty-year engagement with painting deserves respect. If “gee-whiz science porn” goes a bit over the line, it is aimed at the worshipful tones with which Winters’s topological subject matter tends to be discussed. The shape of space is inherently fascinating stuff. It’s also, literally, empty. For me, the weakness of Winters’s current work– not only its color, but as I discussed, its light, its ideas, and, of all things, its space — should at least give pause to the widely held notion of Winters as a contemporary superhero of sincere painterliness. I miss the crippling doubt of the early work, which, paradoxically, felt more genuinely heroic, and more sincere, with an undeniable impact on the times.

By: CAP

CAP — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 05:52:32 +0000

I think the preoccupation with color here somewhat misleads Brody. Notice that, of the canonical figures cited, only Matisse grants special prominence to color. Picasso, de Kooning and Johns are more notable for matters of facture and drawing. It may be enough for the critic to acknowledge ‘graphic intelligence’ (and this qualified as merely working with low-key or tertiary color) but it entirely misses the point. It is the status of fundamentals of volume, tone and shape, their adherence or recognition, their context and relevance that provide valuable models for Winters.

The uncertain distinction between two and three-dimensional entities, between the abstract and figurative, between presentation and representation, set a powerful project for painting across most of the twentieth century and Winters’ turn to scientific models, diagram and illustration of botanical and various statistical details offers more rarefied subject matter certainly, but if anything underlines the essential issues of knowledge and realism, pictorial convention and invention. We work these things out, we test them, but even where there are rules, it gets messy. Ask a scientist. To swipe at such inspiration as ‘gee-whiz science porn’ is no more than a petulant refusal to fully engage with the work.

The role of color here is therefore schematic before ’musical’ and if musical, surely serial. If Winters’ work loses some of this friction with scientific modeling in recent years (and I agree with Brody on this) it is because the sources have become more abstracted, compound and obscure. We are left with rough patterns, but with no real measure for the roughness. All the superimposition and overhead projection cannot really deliver the kind of working out that painting requires, that the sources deserve. As it is, what we often end up with is a vigorous ‘fill’ or coloring-in session that indeed has gravely relaxed ‘challenge level’ for artist and critic. Then again, after thirty years or so, any project is going to show signs of wear.