Karla Black’ solo show at Galleria Raffaella Cortese: have you ever drunk an excellent yellow wine?

 

If we were asked to point out what Karla Black’s art practice is about we would answer that it is about the feeling of a color. Suspended three dimensional and anti formal objects, powder – that is a no dimensional matter – or flat surfaces playing with shadows and lights: they are no more than sophisticated supports for color, conceived exactly to convey the most effective experience of a certain color, or group of colors.

 

In this show’s case, recently opened at Galleria Raffaella Cortese, the color is yellow. Visiting it is more or less like drinking an excellent wine, or touching an extraordinary silky textile, or listening to the sound of the best piano. Materials and supports are there to give you the feeling of yellowness. Just look and enjoy for a little while.

 

Then you could start with the references. The first one is with another master of color: Katharina Grosse. The second is probably with Yves Klein. And then Paul Klee, Claude Monet, and perhaps William Turner. Like Karla Black, all these artists are focused on the experience of the color and on the pleasure coming from the perception of it.

 

At the gallery, we have been told that the yellow pigment has been added by the artist’s assistants after the installation of the artworks. Therefore it should be considered as a sort of activator of the pieces on display, especially the three-dimensional ones put on the floor. Ms. Black didn’t come to install the show because she is pregnant and next to the due date – and the color she has chosen for this show doesn’t tell us whether the baby will be male or female…

 

 

 

September 22, 2014