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Mezcala II

A work made of acrylic on chipboard.

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  • A work made of acrylic on chipboard.

Date:

1999

Artist:

Raimer Jochims
German, born 1935

About this artwork

For over 50 years, Raimer Jochims has remained committed to painting contemplative, process-based abstractions. His mature work evolved out of his participation in monochromatic and optical painting movements in the 1960s and ’70s. Started in 1973, his uniquely shaped paintings originate from studied observations of wide-ranging source materials such as Buddha statues, Polynesian ancestor figures, Aztec pottery, Egyptian sculptures, and Chinese paintings. He uses small traces of these objects to create autonomous works lacking any obvious references to their origins. Ignoring historical and geographical differences, Jochims’s approach assimilates the resulting forms into innovative abstract statements.

Jochims manipulates his painting supports as much as he does their surfaces. He contemplates each shape and selectively activates its edges by chipping the wood with tongs. Jochims then patiently chooses color gradations that seem to respond to the particular demands of the form: some shift quickly and dramatically, while others dissolve slowly and subtly. He later adds an open-ended title that does not necessarily relate directly to his source material but may trigger other associations such as cities, ancient cultures, influential artists, and mythical beings. Finally, he selects the placement and hanging height of each individual work according to color, dimension, and orientation. Using a distinctive methodology, Jochims creates new, autonomous pictorial forms with their own intricacies and self-reflexive logic.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Raimer Jochims

Title

Mezcala II

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 1999

Medium

Acrylic on chipboard

Dimensions

69 × 72 cm (27 1/4 × 28 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Society for Contemporary Art

Reference Number

2015.335

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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