blackbird online journal spring 2002 vol.1 no. 1

 

RICHARD ROTH | Collecting Myself

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.


 Richard Roth, House Paint Color Charts, 100 framed charts, partial installation view, 1994-present.

 
     
 

 Richard Roth, House Paint Color Charts, 100 framed charts, detail, 1994-present.
 



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   Contributor's Notes