About the Work
Blinky Palermo’s ‘Cloth Picture’ consists of precisely the material identified by the title: industrially dyed cloth, stretched on a frame. Yet the arrangement of the pieces of cloth and the size of their surfaces in relation to one another create the impression of a horizon. Blue above, grey below. References to landscape painting are not far-fetched. Above all, however, Palermo’s ‘Cloth Picture’ bears an affinity to American Minimal Art. The latter uses industrially manufactured materials, and its works mean nothing beyond what they are – in this case, cloth of two colours, sewn together. Again and again, Palermo broke with the conventions of the tradition panel painting. In the industrially dyed cloth, colour and surface – in classical terms, the paint and the canvas – form an inseparable unity. The painting is the figure, the wall its background. Artistic traditions are questioned here in a poetic manner.
