“White,” according to Robert Ryman (born 1930), a painter associated with the monochrome painting movement, makes “things visible. With white, you can see more of a nuance” (Ryman, undated). For much of his career, Ryman explored the technical aspects of painting with a persistent focus on whiteness. Untitled is one in a long series of white paintings created by this self-educated artist, whose work alluded to the materiality of the painting and investigated ways that materials such as paint and paper affect the viewer’s experience of seeing. His works, therefore, investigate the liminal space between image and its absence, where the perceived visual nothingness exemplifies—and simultaneously invites viewers to reflect on—the nature of art and its making. Ryman’s Untitled suggests the impossibility of complete absence in the pictorial sphere of a painting, like Paik’s Zen for Film, which proves the impossibility of the existence of an empty film. Visual stillness produces a transmutable image, which compels the viewer to see in manifold ways. —AG

Image: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Purchase through a gift of Mimi and Peter Haas, 98.110. © 2015 Robert Ryman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.