Untitled (farbfeld) 1986

This color block painting is by Gunther Forg. I bet he put down rectangles of yellow, orange, blue and black. I can imagine Forg thinking about the properties of each color as he applied it, watching how they vibrate against one another. Yellow is sunny and warm, while that dark blue, almost black, is cool and distant. And then a deep orange that wants to pull you down! Forg worked with a limited palette to explore his artistic vision. I see his wider practice as a conversation with other color field painters like Rothko and Newman, but maybe a bit more punk? These colors, carefully chosen and arranged, create a kind of language. It’s up to us to interpret it, to find our own meaning in its quiet simplicity. Like a poem that doesn’t quite rhyme, this painting invites us to pause, to feel, and to think.