Making a mark upon the world can be seen as an act of hubris or a frank recognition of the limits of unique inscription, depending upon one’s philosophical inclinations. Simon Hantaï (1922–2008) realized the latter in his painting after having disproven to himself the moral efficacy of the former.
In this exhibition, superbly curated by Molly Warnock, the paintings of Simon Hantaï are presented in New York, a city that has been very slow to appreciate and acknowledge the importance of this Hungarian French artist.
SPEAKING AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY in January 1968, the artist Chryssa detailed a disposition toward creative practice that she described as the “cool mind.”1 The term served to telegraph, via contrast, her disdain for certain endeavors aimed at bridging art and life all of which, in her view, simply reproduced the disordered flux of the “human pattern.” Of particular concern was what she cast as the fundamentally regressive credo of Happenings, with their freewheeling yet ultimately pointless amalgams of things and deeds: “Let us let things happen.” The cool mind makes things happen, eschewing “
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