Untitled

Robert Irwin produced several of these disk-paintings in the late 1960s, first in spun aluminum and later in cast acrylic. He spray-painted this disk to exaggerate its roundness and to create the illusion of a “bar” slicing it in half. He then precisely lit the work so as to create four shadows.

The disks mark a stage in Irwin’s artistic development where he was moving away from painting on canvas and “toward a non-hierarchical, perceptual field.” Irwin wanted to make the experiential transition between the work of art and its context as fluid as possible. For Irwin, the viewer’s perceptual response is as integral to this work of art as the disk and shadow. He strives to smooth out the boundaries that make the work of art appear autonomous and distinct, and to elicit from the viewer a desire for intense, meditative attention. Irwin’s concern with the nature of viewership arose simultaneously with his interest in Zen Buddhist meditation and led him to delve into experimental psychology methods used in studying perception. As he explained, “I first questioned the mark (the image) as meaning and then even as focus; I then questioned the frame as containment, the edge as the beginning and end of what I see.”