The artist in the desert. Agnes Martin: notes on art and solitude.

Abstract

In the past few years, a growing mythology has aroused around the figure of influential, highly praised post-war artist Agnes Martin. Her stripped down, reductive, and completely abstract paintings reveal nothing of her persona. However, her latest retrospectives at Tate Modern and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2015 and 2016, respectively), have sparked a new curiosity about the artist's biography, which is often uncertain and full of contradictions. Her decision to leave New York in 1967, just when her career was becoming internationally acclaimed, and her retreat in the deserts of New Mexico, where she lived almost ascetically (for long periods she didn’t have electricity, telephone, or running water) and in relative isolation until the end of her life have contributed to the mythification of the artist, who is frequently referred to as "priestess of abstraction", "mystic", "icon", “sage” and even “saint”. This text examines Martin's writings, notes, and letters, as well as her spoken statements recorded in documentaries made a few years before her demise, in order to find links between the alienated and contradictory figure of the artist and her aesthetic purpose. Never before was Martin as prolific as when she irrevocably embraced the tranquility of the desert. Solitude turned to be a creative prerequisite for an artist determined to reach “mental clarity”, an imperative state for executing her refined work.