Julije Knifer
Works from 1950 to 2004

Julije Knifer, a prominent Croatian artist who worked marvelously well as an artist given to minimal, hard-edge abstraction, has put up a fantastic show at Peter Freeman, Inc. Paintings become installations, not three-dimensional, but in a sense that black, right-angled planes, often with a deep stripe of white cutting into them, manage to take over the gallery's space. The forms, painted flat on the giant walls of the Freeman interior, are simple in the extreme. They form straightforward patterns, primarily tall, thin rectangles of back that are separated by thin stripes of white. Nearly architectural in appearance, the visual patterns remind us that considerable beauty can be achieved by the simplest of forms when these forms are used in a sophisticated way. 

 

Knifer’s work is easily described: a series of black columns not completely separated by white stripes that alternate in moving downward from the top and upward from the bottom. The simple alteration is compelling and creates a spare but powerful rhythm dependent in important ways on the non-intricate shifts in two-dimensional form. The flatness of these works is obvious, but the way the forms conjoin and interact allows an argument about the appearance of three-dimensional weight.

 

An untitled paper collage (ca. 1970-73), again black and near white, establishes a highly similar pattern, in which an upside-down “U” stands next to a “U” with an extra fold on its right side, which is right side up. The strength of the collage linked to such simple forms depends on the design’s ability to set up a direct perception of geometry, in which the directness becomes a valuable tenet in its own terms. In VW R M (1990), an acrylic work on canvas, Knifer repeats his design of black rectangles cut by thin stripes. On the left, on the high part of the design, there is a white square from which a white line drops into the black medium. To the right of that stripe, we see another white stripe, beginning at the bottom of the black rectangular mass and moving almost as far as its top. As with all the works Knifer shows here, the key is a dramatic directness, a simplicity that emphasizes mass within the design constraints.

 

Some of Knifer’s drawings, which mimic the paintings pretty closely, are nonetheless strikingly attractive in their own right. One work, Sketch 17 (1990), consists of two layers of drawings; the first, on the top, is an extended relay of the up-and-down U-shaped form done in graphite. Beneath it is a more complicated image: one of the geometric um-and-down forms with a hole cut into the design’s left, while on the left, outside of the design, there is a graphite square. To the far right, again outside the larger, more complicated forms, is a sphere.

 

The key to enjoying Knifer’s work has a good deal to do with the fixed gravity of the forms, which often echo highly similar designs. The similarity echoes the direct plasticity of what we see, which means that repetition comes into its own in these seemingly simple but compelling drawings. Subtle differences become important given the overall umbrella of the design. The changes here and there make it known that alterations within sameness convey intellectual interest.

 

We need to remember that even if Knifer was far away from downtown New York City, he was working at a time when minimalism, New York’s major art contribution of the time, was at the top of the efforts being addressed then. Knifer, an artist of considerable subtlety, paid attention to a movement far away from him even though he made it his own. Perhaps this resulted from a slight softening of the image–a refusal to give in entirely to the industrial nature of the art made in the States. Whatever the reason, a quiet difference occurs in Knifer’s nicely fashioned curriculum of direct devices, which, surprisingly, demonstrate more emotional effect than we might imagine.

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Header image: 

Julije Knifer (1924–2004), VW M 14, 1990, acrylic on canvas, 51 3/8 x 39 5/8 inches

Image below:

Installation view Peter Freeman, Inc.: Julije Knifer: Works from 1950 to 2004

Images courtesy of the gallery