Michael Goldberg / Iron Mountain

Michael Goldberg Iron Mountain, 1960
110 5/8 x 65 inches
Oil on canvas
Mannie Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles

IRON MOUNTAIN

by Michael Goldberg

“The declamation of scale and luminosity were followed by a successive pairing down of means and change of tone in Goldberg's expression. By 1960 the surfaces had becone thicker and more of a piece, with a few primary gestures of white plowing into their dark crust. Their range of allusion is minimal. They art tragic rituals from the vantage point of a mournful chorus.

Because of both a need for the expansion of elemental gestures and the avaiability of a new and larger studio, the size of the pictures increased to immense proportions. in some paintings, white stripes trail and jut across washes of brick red or dense green with rough, veined areas and mat silences. The defination is all in the placement and changes of textures. The lines becone protagonists trying to take and hold positions against the clay of these parts. In other paintings, the lines are left out and all that remains is a monochromatic field activated by shiny and matte sections, sometimes triangles or squares, that seem to open up and then immediately close of deep vistas in the center. Goldberg called these his most 'introverted' paintings.”

— Bill Berkson, Art News, January 1964

ABSTRACT ART