Color - Form - Surface: Robert Mangold and Minimal Art
Robert Mangold is regarded as one of the most important representatives of Minimal Art. Alongside the works of Sol LeWitt and Robert Ryman, the New York Times described his oeuvre as the “most quintessential form of Minimalism” as early as the 1980s (William Zimmer, Neuberger Features Mangold, March 9, 1986, The New York Times, p. 26). Robert Mangold is particularly well known for his abstract, radically reduced painterly exploration of the relationship between color, form, and surface—a central theme in art. He was born in North Tonawanda, New York, in 1937 and spent his childhood in Buffalo. He began his artistic career at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he trained as an illustrator until 1959; a few years later, he earned his Master of Fine Arts degree at Yale University in New Haven. During his studies, he experimented with various artistic approaches. He was initially drawn to forms of realistic art, but, still under the influence of Abstract Expressionism, he soon turned to abstraction.

After graduating, he moved to New York with his wife, the artist Sylvia Plimack Mangold. He found an early supporter in the art critic Lucy Lippard, whom he met at the Museum of Modern Art, where he initially worked as a security guard and later in the library. Lucy Lippard had close ties to the inner circle of the minimalists, as she was married to painter Robert Ryman; she also counted Robert Mangold among the so-called “Bowery Boys,” a loose group of artists who lived and worked around Bowery Street in New York at that time. Around 1964, Robert Mangold developed his characteristic style and became one of the defining artists of Minimal Art. He reminisces about this period in an interview: “Just think about the fact that Newman’s ‘Station of the Cross’ or Rothko’s ‘Chapel Painting’ were created at the same time as Warhol’s soup can prints. For me, that was the most exciting confrontation in painting ever. (...) Everything was turned upside down, and it made everyone reconsider what painting can be. Unexpectedly, it flung open the doors (...). It was a very strange and exciting time. (Robert Mangold, in an interview with Robert Storr, on October 1, 1986, quoted from: Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartskunst, Robert Mangold, Issue 57, no. 4, 2022, p. 3).

His work gained international recognition early on and was already on display in major museums by the 1970s. Among his most important solo exhibitions were shows at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1971, the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego in 1974, the Kunsthalle Basel in 1977, and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1982. He also participated in three documenta exhibitions in Kassel, in 1972, 1977, and 1982. The creation of “Four squares within a square (Light Blue)” in 1974 also falls within the period of his international breakthrough.

“Four squares within a square”: Quintessential Minimalism!
Robert Mangold’s art is defined by geometric forms and a calm, precise visual language that, in its consistency and radical painterly reduction, is unparalleled even within the minimalist genre. It is a subtle interplay of shapes and colors, interspersed with delicate pencil lines and mostly restrained, monochromatic color fields of an almost classic beauty, which, through their restraint, encourage deeper contemplation and reflection on the fundamental nature of painting.

His 1974 work “Four squares within a square (Light Blue)” is pure minimalism. On a monochromatic, delicate light-blue surface, he drew a square in each of the four corners of the 183 x 183 cm square canvas, using four delicate pencil lines for each. They differ only in size, gradually increasing their surface area in a clockwise direction until the final square in the bottom-left corner ultimately fills exactly one-quarter of the canvas. With “Four Squares within a Square,” Robert Mangold follows the execution of a serially conceived fundamental principle, as a comparison with other works from the same year illustrates. This is also evident in the works “Four Squares within a Square II” and “Four Squares Within a Square #3,” both of which are in the collections of major American museums. In each case, he placed four squares within the canvas, and the variation in color and arrangement of the squares results in completely distinct works.

He once said in an interview: “Geometric art always makes me really nervous; I don't think my work has anything to do with it”—a statement that seems to stand in stark contrast to his art. But as the interview continues, the meaning behind his words becomes clear: “I believe my work is always about whether things go together, whereby the form of the edge either defines the internal structure or creates a framework against which the internal structure plays out.” (Robert Mangold, quoted from: Interview with Robin White, in: View, vol. I, no. 7, Oakland 1978, p. 12). It is a paradox of rigor and tenderness that permeates Mangold’s work—geometric precision and clear forms that do not confine but rather create space, and in their reduction to the essential unfold an almost meditative beauty for the invisible between the lines: the quiet poetry of pure painting. [AR]