Description

Because the work he produced during the 1960s and 1970s has an underlying geometric structure, Brice Marden is sometimes labeled a Minimalist. Although his work is restrained and stays within a restricted format and range of colors, it is nonetheless expressive. As Marden has said, "I try to give the viewer something to which he will react subjectively." During the mid-1970s, Marden spent a great deal of time in Greece and was profoundly influenced by ancient Greek architecture and myth. One of the reasons for his travels, "was to study the beginnings of Western culture and where it went wrong." Concluding that the shift that occurred centuries ago from a matriarchal to a patriarchal society was at fault, he made a series of images in celebration of the Great Goddess, the preeminent deity of the ancient matriarchal culture. Associated with the celestial bodies, her phases (as maiden, woman, and crone) were thought to correspond to the moon's three phases (waxing, full, and waning). These works, closely related to a series of paintings by the artist, are from a portfolio of five prints, each composition similarly divided into three sections.