Secret Painting is a series of artworks created by British conceptual artist

Mel Ramsden Mel Ramsden (27 December 1944 – 23 July 2024) was a British conceptual artist and member of the Art & Language artist group. Life and work Ramsden was born in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, England on 27 December 1944. He studied at Nottingham C ...

for the collective

Art & Language Art & Language is an English conceptual artists' collaboration that has undergone many changes since it was created around 1967. The group was founded by artists who shared a common desire to combine intellectual ideas and concerns with the cre ...

between 1967 and 1968. The series consists of

monochrome painting Monochromatic painting has played a significant role in Modernism, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary Western world, Western visual art, originating with the early 20th-century European avant-gardes. Artists have explored the non-represent ...

s juxtaposed with text panels explaining the absence of a conventional subject; for example, one states that the painting in question is invisible.

Background and analysis

The series is distinguished from the monochrome paintings usually produced in the field of

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

by their accompanying block of texts. It references both the history of monochrome painting and

Kazimir Malevich Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (

's '' Black Square'' (1915), as well as functioning as an answer given by Ramsden to the paintings of Ad Reinhardt (1913-1967), an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

painter and theoretician, a precursor of conceptual and

minimal art Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or conc ...

. The series has raised questions of the status of the art object and the play that is established between the artist and the visitor in the possible revelation of content. To his amusement, during the exhibition ''1969: The Black Box of Conceptual Art'', Ann Stephen (PhD and Chief Curator of the University of Sydney Art Museum) said:

Exhibitions

* ''Arte Concettuale'', Galerie Daniel Templon,

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, 1971 * ''New York Art & Language'', Galeria Schema,

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, 1974 * ''Early work 1965-1976, Recent work 1991-1994'', Lisson Gallery,

Londres Londres may refer to: Locations * London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wi ...

, 1994 * ''Art & Language and Luhmann'', Kunstraum Vienna, Vienne, 1995 * ''Art & Language'', Kunsthalle St Gallen, Saint-Gall, 1996 * ''Then and Now'', Lisson Gallery, Londres, 1998 * ''Materializing six years: Lucy R. Lippard and the emergence of conceptual art'',

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

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, 2013 * ''Art & Language Uncompleted - Philippe Méaille Collection'', MACBA, Barcelone, 2014 * ''Unpainting'', Galerie d'art de Nouvelle-Galles du Sud,

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

, 2018 * ''Art & Language - Reality (Dark) Fragments (Light)'', Château de Montsoreau - musée d'Art contemporain,

Montsoreau Montsoreau () is a commune of the Loire Valley in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast and from Paris. The village is listed among '' The Most Beautiful Villages of France'' () and is part of t ...

, 2018

References

{{Art & Language 1967 paintings Art & Language