Jerry Tsukio Okimoto
American, 1924-1998
Jerry Okimoto sought to challenge the distinction between painting, sculpture, and other traditional modes of artmaking. An exploration of geometric form and three-dimensionality, Mobile Painting #17 also plays with the perception of the viewer. While at first glance this painting appears to be a completely flat, tricolored surface, the blue square in fact sits in a channel in front of the red and yellow squares and can be moved left or right to reconfigure the composition. The artist even created four studies, also in the Albright-Knox's collection, to demonstrate a range of possibilities.
Label from Giant Steps: Artists and the 1960s, June 30–December 30, 2018