Stanley Whitney's 'In the Color' exhibition at Lisson Gallery showcases decades of vibrant abstraction

Stanley Whitney's solo exhibition 'In the Color' ran from November 3 to December 21, 2018 at Lisson Gallery's two New York locations on West 24th Street and Tenth Avenue. The presentation spanned 22 years of paintings and drawings, nearly functioning as a survey of the artist's career. Whitney employs a loose grid structure with vibrant color arrangements that transform color into both subject and object. His 8x8 foot title painting from 2018 features cadmium yellow, cadmium red, cobalts, teals, viridians, and pastel pinks arranged in horizontal bands. The artist allows drips and bleeds in works like Untitled (1996), where gestural brushwork interacts with flatly painted grounds of light blues, whites, pale yellows, bright reds, and deep blacks. Drawings such as Untitled (2013) display crayon scribbles and curlicues that playfully conform to grid structures while nearly collapsing them. Whitney's artistic development shows influences from color field painting and gestural abstraction, with early works from the 1980s displaying frenetic energy through wet-into-wet techniques. The exhibition demonstrates how Whitney has navigated formal conventions without becoming repetitive, creating spatial dimension through color placement and rectangle proximity. His work connects to a lineage including Philip Guston and the New York School while establishing unique territory that merges color and form.