Marcia Hafif

February 7, 1974, 1974

Marcia Hafif belongs to an association of artist’s which formed in New York in the 1970s, labeled ‘Radical Painting.’ Titled ‘Beginning Again,’ Hafif published an important early theoretical essay in the ‘Artforum’ journal. Here, she discussed the basic conditions of painting – brushwork, surface, format, monochromie, seriality. Hafif’s new beginning is marked by a series of pencil drawings, the first dating from January 1, 1972, and the last from 1982. The common denominator of all these drawings is the attempt of evenly covering the paper with short vertical marks, as identical as possible and with even spacing. The aim is to generate a picture form that evolves entirely from the possibilities of medium and material, as if witnessing the work’s self-generation.