Less Is More at the Armory Show Modern
Jean-Paul Riopelle, “Untitled (Iceberg Series)” (1977), oil on canvas, 10 3/5 × 13 4/5 in (courtesy Oriol Galería d’Art)
Let’s face it: navigating Armory Week and all its various satellites is a bitch. With so much art to see and endless booths to maneuver, it’s all very daunting. But we love it. Well, at least I love it.
Spontaneity and taxis are the two things I rely on the most. Spontaneity, because one should always open to possibilities, no matter what the schedule might dictate. Taxis, because who in their right mind wants to walk the five long-ass blocks to Pier 92, where the Armory Show’s Modern section was housed, from the subway (with a headwind off the Hudson River that somehow affects travel in both directions)?
A tiny black-and-white painting by the expressionist Jean-Paul Riopelle, “Untitled (Iceberg Series)” (1977), was the first work that grabbed me. On view at the booth of Oriol Galería d’Art, based in Barcelona, the painting measures only 10 by 13 inches but is incredibly seductive. Riopelle was known for his voluminous impasto, and this little work does not disappoint, with heavy lines of black carved deep into the back of the canvas with palette knife. Its simplistic, totemic gestures echo a range of history painting that could easily date back to the Lascaux caves. In 1972, Riopelle returned to his hometown of Québec and built a studio at Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson. The stark northern landscapes there inspired his Iceberg Series of 1977 and 1978, to which this painting is attributed.
