Cord Painting 14

During the 1960s and 1970s, many artists opened their practices to a wider range of media; they often incorporated pliable materials such as yarn, string, and rope into their work. Although Regina Bogat considers this a painting, the only painted element is its cadmium red background. After the artist drilled holes into the canvas, she arranged the cords systematically using a grid and a repeated sequence of colors. She then subverted the careful logic of her composition by knotting the dangling cords at irregular lengths. This is one of a series of fifteen cord paintings Bogat made in the 1970s from her home in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, where she moved in 1972 with her husband, painter Alfred Jensen. “I missed my art supply store in Manhattan,” she recently recalled. “In its stead, I found a local trimmings shop that had a beautiful array of embroidery threads and cord trimmings. I had been influenced by my friend Eva Hesse’s recent use of unorthodox materials in her art; and perhaps, I was also unconsciously influenced by the hair phenomenon of the early seventies.”