The other day, I came across these paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe at an exhibition.
My first thought was actually how much these works remind me of minimalist and abstract
works by artists like Ellsworth Kelly and Josef Albers.
Which made sense to me since many artists around this time, in the 1950s and 60s, were
emphasizing the use of intense colours, painting hard edged contours, and exploring the compositional
arrangements of geometric shapes.
However, I discovered one big difference between the O’Keeffe works
and the works of many geometric abstractionists.
Most O’Keeffe works had descriptive titles,
while many abstract paintings of this era did not.
These two by O'Keefe are titled “Black Door with Red” and “My Last Door.”
They’re two in a series of many paintings O’Keeffe did of the patio door
in her New Mexico studio.
The black rectangle at the centre is the patio door, and the small horizontal series of rectangles
below it are the porcelain tiles in front of the door.
These two paintings by Ellsworth Kelly look similar to the O’Keeffe paintings, however,
one is untitled, and the other is called “Two Whites and Black”.
It’s a title for sure, but not the most helpful one.
This painting by Josef Albers is also untitled, while this other one is called “Variant”
part of the variant series where he painted the same rectangular arrangements in various colours
Again, many of these artists were exploring similar ideas - representing the same rectilinear
motifs over and over with different colour arrangements.
But the titles matter, because they influence how we think and contextualize what we see.
Maybe all of these paintings are meant to depict entries, portals, and doorways.
But the the O’Keeffe paintings are the only ones where the meaning is concretely defined.
Similarly - this other painting by O’Keeffe also resembles paintings by the abstract expressionist
Agnes Martin.
However, many of Martin’s paintings were also untitled while this O’Keeffe work is
called “Sky with Flat White Cloud.”
These titles, in addition to communicating (or not communicating) with the viewer what
the work is about, also can reveal where the artists are coming from and what they were
trying to achieve with their Art.
O’Keeffe was known for painting the world around her.
Wherever she went, she painted the skies, rivers, and mountains that surrounded her.
Sure, she depicted her world in surreal and abstracted ways, but they were still depictions
of real subject matter.
While Agnes Martin did not see her paintings as representing scenes of reality, but as
philosophical and symbolic expressions of lines, grids, and subdued colours.
Another very well known abstract painters who chose to not title many of his paintings
is Mark Rothko.
When looking at this painting - you can interpret it in many different ways.
You may see it as just two colours - black and grey, divided evenly in the middle.
Or you might see it as a barren, desolate landscape against a dark, starless, moonless night.
Or you can look at it from an emotional and philosophical perspective.
Perhaps it symbolizes something dark and depressing - like hell or death.
One of the reasons this art work is so open to interpretation - other than the minimalist
nature of the image - is that it’s untitled.
The artist chose to not tell us what it is, or what he was thinking exactly.
The title, or lack there of in this instance, gives us the ability to view it on our own
terms, and lets us establish our own context.
The other thing you may notice is that some of these “untitled” paintings have subtitles,
or titles in brackets.
Many of these subtitles were attributed not by the artist themselves, but by others such
as art dealers, gallery staff or art critics.
For instance, a series of Mark Rothko paintings are called “Untitled (Multiforms)”.
However, the name Multiform was not used by Rothko himself, and in fact did not become
associated with these paintings until they appeared in exhibition catalogues after his death.
But sometimes, the “Untitled” titles are given to the artworks
on purpose by the artists themselves.
The photographer Cindy Sherman is probably most well known for her photographic series
named “Untitled Film Stills.”
It is a series of black and white photographs of herself posing as
stereotypical female film characters.
They look like they could be stills taken straight from
1950s and 60s era Hollywood film sets.
Here - the “untitled” nature of these film stills are important.
Sherman aimed to achieve a level of ambiguity in these portraits.
She didn’t want these to be anything specific, or any identifiable movie character.
She wanted these photos to express the generic, cliche representations of women in film
to highlight how one-dimensional, and interchangeable these characters can be.
Another example of the deliberate use of “Untitled” as the artwork title are by artist
Felix Gonzales Torres.
Many of his works are “Untitled” followed by a subtitles in parenthesis.
Such as Untitled (Perfect Lovers), Untitled (Death by Gun) and Untitled (Last Light).
In all these works, the titles in the parenthesis are symbolic, and give the viewers clues into
what these artworks represent.
Why then, would he chose the primary title to be Untitled?
You may ask.
Well, It’s hard to say for sure.
Maybe he was deliberately poking fun at modern art?
Maybe he precisely wanted you to pay attention to the title
and this was his way of drawing you in?
Or maybe he’s representing how these works can be subtle and mundane, while also representing
powerful and concrete ideas at the same time.
Thanks for watching everyone
Let me know in the comments below what title you would give this painting
If you were tasked with giving it a name.
Hey now that we’ve heard so much about artworks with no names.
I was actually thinking, why don’t we come on over to my friend Patrick of Name Explain’s
channel where we're gonna explain to you the stories behind 5 artworks with actual names.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community