Dia is pleased to present a group of recently acquired black-and-white works on paper that Jack Whitten realized in the 1970s. The year 1970 saw a shift in Whitten’s studio methods, with systematic process replacing the gestural abstraction of the previous decade. He started to work horizontally on flat surfaces and employ new tools, materials, and methods of his own design in order to generate images that dispense with the artist’s hand. In keeping with the language of contemporary technologies, Whitten began using the term “developed,” as opposed to “designed,” to describe his changed approach to image-making. As the works in this presentation attest, the pulse of experimentation in Whitten’s oeuvre is first felt on paper.

Jack Whitten is curated by Matilde Guidelli-Guidi, curator and co–department head, with Emily Markert, curatorial assistant.

All exhibitions at Dia are made possible by the Economou Exhibition Fund.

Jack Whitten was born in Bessemer, Alabama, in 1939. Whitten died in New York City in 2018.

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