“Small differences make all the difference”, also for the upcoming Julia Rommel’ solo at Bureau

 

We believe these lines from Kirk Varnedoe’s book “Picture of nothing” (Mellow Lecture, 2003) to be the perfect introduction to Rommel practice of painting and writing, also considering the similarity between the work used to announce the upcoming Julia Rommel solo at Bureau, New York, with the cover of the book:

 

“Between the vague confusions of individual experience and the authority of big ideas, sign me up for experience first. […] Now this may sound like dumb anti-intellectualism, but I hope it is something better. Abstraction, of course, has a lot to do with ideas and theory. One of the valuable things it does more fiercely than a lot of other art is to make us think and read what others think: Greenberg on Pollock, Professor Michael Fried, Mellon Lecturer in 2002, on Stella, and so on. But it is also crucially about experience and about particulars. The less there is to look at, the more important it is that we look at it closely and carefully. This is critical to abstract art. Small differences make all the difference.”

 

The text the artist wrote for the show is available here.

July 18, 2015