Be I 1970

Barnett Newman made this painting, Be I, with oil on canvas, and what strikes me is how a single gesture, that thin, vertical line, can hold so much… potential. I imagine Newman, standing before this large red field, trying to find the right place, the right pressure, for that line. Does it feel like a release or a constraint? Maybe it's both. That line, or “zip” as he called it, it’s not just dividing the space; it's activating it. Newman’s work makes me think about other painters, like Rothko, and the way they approached these big fields of color, trying to get at something fundamental. What does it mean to mark, to claim, to interrupt a space? What does it mean to *be*? It is a continuation of a long conversation.