BN: The Paintings in Scale (Blue)

David Diao

1991

A large acrylic and vinyl painting that translates Barnett Newman’s paintings into a measured field of blue geometric blocks, turning an artist’s catalogue into a visual diagram about scale and legacy.

A deep, textured navy field is punctuated across its wide surface by tidy, lighter-blue rectangles and a single triangle—each small shape read like a plotted marker (with tiny year labels), so the eye moves between pattern, rhythm, and implied chronology.

By treating Newman’s oeuvre as visual data, Diao links Minimalist form to conceptual mapping and postmodern art-historical critique, asking how scale, cataloguing, and reputation shape what we call a masterpiece.

Palette

Art Terms

Acrylic paint Canvas Painting Conceptual art Geometric abstraction Minimalism Appropriation Postmodernism

Exhibitions

The New American Painting as Shown in Eight European Countries 1958...

1959

Painting and Sculpture from the Museum Collection

1964

American Painters as New Lithographers

1964

Large-Scale Modern Paintings

1947