Stanley Whitney: In the Color

Color inspires and informs the work of New York artist Stanley Whitney (born 1946), whose paintings explore the many possibilities created by the tessellation and juxtaposition of irregular rectangles in varying shades of strength and subtlety. Within the composition of these adjacent nodes?a structure that fluctuates between freedom and constraint, between endless open fields and controlled boundaries?is ultimately a play between complementing and competing areas of color.

In the Color investigates Whitney’s profound relationship to color and its spatial effects throughout his career. The clothbound publication has been produced in a unique size that exactly matches the scale of Whitney’s smallest oil on linen works, and catalogs in full color a number of works from the 1990s to the present that were included in Whitney’s fourth exhibition with Lisson Gallery. Art historian and scholar Adrianna Campbell’s essay, “The Primacy of Color,” prefaces the publication.