Nothing But Good: Yifat Gat / Moshe Kupferman

Saturday, 5 October 2013

Yifat Gat / Moshe Kupferman

Moshe Kupferman
Painting

1972
oil on canvas
99.5 x 115.5 cm

Moshe Kupferman

Untitled

1973

oil on canvas

At first glance, Moshe Kupferman’s oeuvre appears to be purely abstract, grounded solely in visions of an inner world. Within this abstraction—whether it be the minimalist works of the 1970s or the more expressive painting of his later years—one of Kupferman’s central themes is the act of concealing, erasing, and revealing elements within the work, a process of building up layers of color and form.

The almost square canvas, the first work above here, is marked by a series of horizontal lines and a large Y. The lines are white, while the background is in an indescribable shade of purple including elements of red, blue, green, and brown. This color has been described as “almost colorless, meaningless,” but since the 1960s, it has been Kupferman’s own, a repeated distinguishing trait of his paintings. The act of recycling exists not only in his palette, but also in the forms that recur throughout his oeuvre, creating a memory and allowing each work to resume and renew the process of painting.

Kupferman’s compulsive reiteration, apparent here in a single canvas, but true of his work over many decades, reinforces the enigma underlying his art: seemingly minimalist and concerned with purely formal issues, yet layered with depths of history and inner turmoil. The murkiness of the purple and the overpainting and erasure hint at buried memories and impressions that refuse to remain in the recesses of the mind. The lines here produce a fixed pattern, a quietude that gives order to the surface. They create a rhythm that builds the supporting structure for the Y-shaped lines, which, though still keeping to an order and rhythm, disrupt the calm horizontality.

Israel Museum, Jerusalem