Brice Marden (1938–2023)

Artist's book published in occasion of the exhibition (Houston, Contemporary Art Museum), illustrated with 70 reproductions of drawings by the artist.

Brice Marden is an American artist best known for his 1970’s monochromatic panel paintings and, later, for his brightly colored, large-scale paintings of wavering lines. He has participated in hundreds of group and solo exhibitions, most notably his 1975 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum and “Brice Marden: Cold Mountain,” an exhibition that travelled from Dia Center for the Arts in New York to the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Menil Collection (Houston), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid), and Städtisches Kunstmuseum (Bonn).

Suicide Notes (1974) is a book of drawings. The front cover reads: “These are [scratched out text] suicide notes…I don’t know what my mind means!?” Inside are seventy-two pages, each featuring a small, black and white drawing. They all have a scratchy, frantic quality to them, while still continuing Marden’s formal exploration of shapes (mostly rectangles and squares) as containers, or windows. Centered on each page, they have a simplicity to them, allowing each shape to be studied in detail.

Bibliography: Sammlung Panza di Biumo 1980: page 346.… (altro)

"Mars black, lemon yellow, use muddy white. Don't forget the young blonde in La Dolce Vita. Scenes in country cafe and post orgy on the beach. She is the one Benno calls the 'Purity symbol.' Orange green grey." This and other reflections make up Brice Marden: Notebook Sept. 1964-Sept. 1967 and Brice Marden: Notebook Feb. 1968-, facsimiles of American artist Brice Marden's (born 1938) personal journals.
On every page, a patchwork of clippings, drawings, renderings and handwritten notes reveal the painter's thought process and document the political and cultural events of the era. A prolific notetaker, Marden filled his journals with subject matter as familiar as references to Italian film director Federico Fellini and as esoteric as "looking at an object in nature and running lines around it."
The constant throughout is the work--deliberate, studied rectangles of graphite and ballpoint pen allude to the monochrome paintings that earned the artist fame and are a precursor to the panel paintings to come. Each journal is a unique guide to Marden's artistic output from that period as well as a distinct reference to the city--at that time bustling with artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns--where he painted.… (altro)

"Mars black, lemon yellow, use muddy white. Don't forget the young blonde in La Dolce Vita. Scenes in country cafe and post orgy on the beach. She is the one Benno calls the 'Purity symbol.' Orange green grey." This and other reflections make up Brice Marden: Notebook Sept. 1964-Sept. 1967 and Brice Marden: Notebook Feb. 1968-, facsimiles of American artist Brice Marden's (born 1938) personal journals.
On every page, a patchwork of clippings, drawings, renderings and handwritten notes reveal the painter's thought process and document the political and cultural events of the era. A prolific notetaker, Marden filled his journals with subject matter as familiar as references to Italian film director Federico Fellini and as esoteric as "looking at an object in nature and running lines around it."
The constant throughout is the work--deliberate, studied rectangles of graphite and ballpoint pen allude to the monochrome paintings that earned the artist fame and are a precursor to the panel paintings to come. Each journal is a unique guide to Marden's artistic output from that period as well as a distinct reference to the city--at that time bustling with artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns--where he painted.… (altro)