‘ART’ Dramaturgy

Barnett Newman

1905-1970 | American

“I began this picture... unprepared. I had the wish that the image should be asymmetrical, forming a space unlike any I had ever created, a kind of 'off-balance'. It was shortly after I had built the main red body that the color problem became crucial. only the colors yellow and blue were possible…”

Barnett Newman. ‘Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue IV’. 1969

Barnett Newman. Onement VI. 1953

(cont.) “At that moment I realized that I was confronted with the dogma that color must be reduced to the primary constellation. Just as I was confronted with other dogmatic positions of the purists, neoplasticists and other formalists with their dogma, which mortgaged red, yellow and blue by transforming these colors into an idea and thereby destroying them as colors. I therefore had the double incentive to use these very colors to express my intentions, they to use it more expressively than didactically and to free them from their mortgage.Why should anyone be afraid of red, yellow and blue?"

Image of vandalized Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue by Barnett Newman