Mercury Zone III, 1995

(For a better image and more info visit this link)

A few days back, a friend of mine and I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While his IDC had him running about on a search for lions, we came across this large canvas (96x143in). The artist is a Brooklyn native by the name of Al Held (1928-2005). At first, the two-colored nature of the painting can come off as a bit bland, so you move a bit closer to see if there are some subtle hidden colors. To your shock, it turns out that it simply black and white but the deeper beauty comes from the fact that it was painted using acrylic. It is a difficult medium to use because of its viscosity; so the skill it must have taken to paint not just perfectly straight lines, but also the curves of circles with a constant fluidity that the medium lacks all with the thick brush is astounding and should be applauded. The composition comes off as simply trippy and cool at first, maybe a sect of cubism. But upon further research, the piece is part of the art movement known as “Geometric Abstraction,” where the goal of the artist is to emphasize the simplest, geometric shapes in gestural paintings. Those paintings seek to show the rough, fast, fluid nature of movement. Held’s friend and prominent New York City-born art critic, Irving Sandler, comments on his art, meanings, and intent below.

Now if you look again at the piece with this knowledge, it puts the entire thing in a new light. You can start to see some of the intended movement. The circles could seem to be a translucent lens, that allows you to see a different amount, or a different layer of something. These lenses are moving through and past each other, their translucency letting the audience see a different part of a different amount of the big picture; or possibly a different depth of what’s going on behind it. This interpretation coincides with what Sandler says in the video, of how Held attempts to break down the underlying structures of gestural paintings with geometric shapes and then, in an effort to distinguish the concept from cubism, strives to depict the third dimension of depth through two-dimensional geometric figures.

The title of the piece Mercury III can offer some of itself to my argument. The number after “Mercury” has some significance to the piece since I could not find any record of a Mercury II or Mercury I, so it rules out the possibility of a series (though I will concede that it could have been the third attempt at the piece on his part). But note that there are three “glances” into the depth in the painting, one being between the two circles in the bottom right, the second being part of the large circle on the left, and the third being between the two circles in the middle. The title Mercury relates to science or examining so they could be lenses examining a higher dimension (3rd) through the tools of what is available in only the lesser dimension (2nd). But this view of the higher dimension is blocked in layers and layers by shapes from the current dimension, not letting us see the full view of the higher dimension. It could be commenting on the quest of science for a higher level of understanding being blocked by the desires of the dimension they are in. Whether it be the lack of understanding of where they are now is preventing them from moving forward (i.e. ignorance) or just other things in this dimension not letting/wanting to let us see what happens when we move up on. Either way, it seems to be an obstacle blocking us from seeing a bigger picture.

– Pri Raval