Gordon Newton, Untitled. Ink on paper, two aluminum discs.

October 18, 2019

 

An adult, child and dog are jotted down hastily on a piece of paper. They are scribbles of movement; a quick attempt at capturing a moment that has changed before one has had a chance to copy it down. They are relatable in the way that one looks at anyone that they love, scrambling desperately to somehow make the memory permanent as it happens. Ultimately, one knows that people shift, and learn, and change, and grow. Suddenly the indent of their palm no longer seems so flush to the inside of one’s own. And so, one steps back and just looks, thinking to oneself, I must remember this. Too often, one does not remember. These moments can only last so long in the jumbled closet of human memory. Yet still, one tries. Gordon Newton has tried within his unimposing untitled sketch. The blurry figures hurry forward, arms and legs lost in pen marks coming untwined. The piece of paper on which they are drawn has been carefully torn out and propped up, capturing a feeling and two people perhaps more truthfully than any framed photograph. 

To many, Gordon Newton’s artwork is the epitome of the Cass Corridor movement: gritty collages of industrial found objects, messy geometric prints, and heaps of textured collage over paint in the same eclectic vein as Robert Rauschenberg. Newton began his career attending art classes at Port Huron Community College. In 1969, Newton moved to Detroit where he studied at the Society of Arts and Crafts, later known as the College for Creative Studies. Newton’s work has been included at institutions such as the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and the Detroit Institute of Art. 

Written by Samantha Hohmann 

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