Look, we get it: White-on-white paintings are about the most impenetrable and seemingly pretentious works on display for many museumgoers. But there’s an experiential beauty literally on the surface of Mary Corse’s monochrome canvases that should keep you from pulling an about-face.
One of the few women widely associated with SoCal’s Light and Space movement, Corse creates geometric, abstract canvases and illuminated encasements that attempt to capture the very essence of light. While some of the movement’s biggest names (think: James Turrell) turned to sculpture and installation, Corse’s career has largely focused on painting.
In the most quintessential L.A. moment, Corse’s breakthrough came in 1968 as she was driving through Malibu around sunset and noticed the eye-catching flickers of light from the white lines on the road. So she started incorporating those same reflective glass microspheres into her paint; she’d start with a primer of paint, apply the glass bits and then flip the canvas to let them bead off, much as you would with glitter and glue. The final product: white paintings that may appear flat from one angle, but shimmer with radiating ribbons of light as you walk by them.
Originally organized by the Whitney, this career-tracing exhibition begins around 1964 and works its way roughly chronologically through the evolution of Corse’s processes, including her efforts with metal flakes, Tesla coils and plexiglass, as well as a couple of black pieces inspired by the very earth her Topanga Canyon studio rests on.
