The Sound of Vision
Karl Gerstner “Color Sound” at Meredith Rosen Gallery, February 16-March 23, 2024
Peering into these very introspective works by Karl Gerstner, one has the distinct experience of having an encounter simultaneously on different levels of perception. Gerstner was known primarily as a celebrated typographer. Yet clearly he understood and was able to make a specific contribution to Op Art, as evidenced by his inclusion in the Museum of Modern Art’s “Responsive Eye” exhibition of 1965. For the purpose of this series, Gerstner developed a format upon which he could place certain chromatic displays, a serial format that resembles the shadow of a ladder or a doorway glimpsed in near darkness. Like a picture window upon a vast expanse of unknown area, his works achieve a sublime emphasis that is both introspective and sensory in the extreme. The use of color, in graduations affected by limited perception, achieves a greater dimensional character. We see colors vibrate in different ways according to the illumination or darkening, the warmness or coolness of the hues and color evinced in each work. Cool blues are decidedly arctic, and warm oranges are tropical. It’s perhaps not the color that vibrates or echoes such much as it may be our own self, recalling sense memories that were among the first we ever had in each instance. This work is diffuse and intense but by no means does it come off as “abstract.” We’re not looking upon an oblique object that intends to transform our expectations, but rather a lens through which we can focus our senses. This must be the way diverse other creatures in nature beside human beings are supposed to view the known universe. The experience was uniquely memorable.
