Jack Whitten

The exhibition includes rare works from Whitten’s landmark, monochromatic Greek Alphabet series (1975 – 1978), which was the focus of a dedicated exhibition at Dia Beacon, New York NY, (2022 – 2023). The exhibition at Hauser & Wirth London goes beyond the monochrome to also display Whitten’s experimentation with color during this process-based period. In March 2025, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will open ‘Jack Whitten: The Messenger,’ the first comprehensive retrospective dedicated to the groundbreaking American artist.

Whitten not only explored various artistic tools but also a range of mediums. Following a grant received by the Xerox Corporation in 1970, Whitten made a major discovery: dry pigment or toner needed no binder but was made permanent by applying heat. Relying heavily on the capacities of Xerox’s electrostatic printing technology, which allowed him to push traditional visual vocabularies and manipulate the idea of plane and space, the artist began applying toner directly to canvas and paper, utilizing heat lamps to set the images. With total abstraction and sophisticated restraint, ‘Xeroxed!, III’ (1975) is emblematic of Whitten’s investigative spirit of the decade.

On view in the exhibition, and exemplary of Whitten’s indirect painting methods, are four works from the artist’s renowned Greek Alphabet series. Greece was an important influence throughout the artist’s career. Whitten’s wife, Mary, was Greek and the two first visited the country together in 1969. They would later decide to spend every summer on the island of Crete. Realized between 1975 and 1978, Whitten’s Greek Alphabet series consists of variations of predominantly black and white, abstract compositions ordered per the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet.

It was mainly in the Cretan village of Agia Galini that Whitten’s sculptural practice was carried out. Working in an outdoor workshop, these works consisted of carved wood, often in combination with found materials sourced from his local environment, including bone, marble, paper, glass, nails and fishing lines. Whitten’s sculptural works were private in nature, their creation an act of ritual as much as expression and were of great personal significance to the artist. This includes the sculpture ‘Reliquary For Orfos’ (1978) with an upright, slightly tilted posture recalling that of ancient Cycladic figures, made using black mulberry wood and housing the bones of the prehistoric-looking Orfos fish, which the artist hunted in underwater caves in Crete.

Citing this shift as a poignantly personal and political decision, he says, ‘I removed all spectrum color from the studio … I reduced them down to black, white, and a range of greys. … you have to understand that in getting rid of all the chroma and taking it to black and white is not just a formal exercise. I’m very much aware of the meaning of black and white in American society, which informs who I am as an African American. The formal reasons for black and white are one thing but there are also the reasons coming out of the political situation, and I wanted to see if I could combine them.’ Mary Whitten highlights that despite works from this era being resolutely concept-driven and process-based, ‘Jack felt that the technical studies and experimentations were always working towards a goal of spirit and soul in the work. Never just the dry illustration of an idea.’

On the occasion of Whitten’s exhibition ‘More Dimensions Than You Know: Jack Whitten, 1979 – 1989’ at Hauser & Wirth London in 2017, the artist talks to Ursula about his life and work in his studio in Queens, New York NY.