Untitled 1959

Norman Bluhm made this untitled painting with paint, and maybe a few other sneaky tools, who knows? Bluhm's got this cool way of letting the paint drip and splash, almost like he's wrestling with it. The white streaks slicing through the chaos, they’re like these defiant gestures, pushing against the darker mess. The reds and blacks bleeding into each other—it feels raw, like emotions spilling out. Look closely, you can almost feel the energy of his process, the way the paint pools and runs. There's this one spot, near the bottom left, where the black paint clumps up, thick and gloppy. It's like a little rebellion against smoothness, a reminder of the body's presence in the art. It reminds me of a more colorful Franz Kline, but with a bit more…sass. Like he’s saying, “Yeah, I can do angst, but I can also make it kinda pretty.” In the end, Bluhm’s not trying to give us answers; he’s inviting us to get lost in the questions.