Universe Painting

I and Universe Painting, two works by John Torreano from 1968 and 1975 respectively, reflect the artist’s belief that art is a process of communication between artist, artwork, and viewer, a process that grants the viewer as much say in the creative potential of each artwork as the artist himself. The two works also testify to Torreano’s longstanding preoccupation with a particular set of formal issues: both I and Universe Painting are predicated on an ornamental sense of geometry and a vivid sense of color and surface. At the same time, they give viewers the opportunity to trace the development of Torreano’s career between 1968 and 1975, when he refined certain theoretical principles and shifted media from painting to a hybridized form of painting and sculpture. Torreano’s hybridized Universe Paintings pose a direct challenge to the tenets of Greenbergian Modernism, insofar as they inhabit the categories of painting and sculpture simultaneously. They also invoke Michael Fried’s notion of “theatricality.” In order to be seen in their totality, the Universe Paintings demand that the viewer constantly change positions. Whenever the viewer steps close to them, moreover, she sees her distorted image reflected the jewels. As such, the Universe Paintings “particularize,” to use Torreano’s own word, the viewer’s location in relationship to the works themselves.