House Paint Color Charts was described
by Sarah Rogers, former Director of Exhibitions at the Wexner Center
for the Arts, as "at once a lexicon of color and geometric
shape, a modernist's hallucination and a simple gathering of paint
charts. Taken from hardware stores and paint shops, each of the
charts is its own universe of specific colors, often in a particular
tonal range, that defines a style or expressive mode—colonial,
southwest, classic, baroque. . .
"Framed as they are, the
group becomes relics, signposts and reductive codes for value systems
that are
social and aesthetic. . . ." In the color charts, the relationship
of text to color is critical—the color names of the "Pale
Chart" read: Half 'n Half, Angel Wings, Chalk Gray, Ballerina,
Free Spirit, and Whisper. The "Williamsburg" color
chart is a chromatic history of colonial America: King's Arm
Rose Pink,
Raleigh Tavern Tan, Apothecary Shop Blue, and Benjamin Powel House
Green; and the chart "Color Combinations for the 90's"
revels in a postmodern rainbow: Mesquite Navajo Red, Yale Blue,
Graham Cracker, Popeye, and Bison Beige.
|