Since 1974, the German artist Peter Dreher
has made thousands of paintings of the same empty glass.
Under the general title ‘Day by Day good
Day’, the paintings fall into two series, day and night, according to the time
of painting. It is always the same empty glass, in the same place, painted life
size.
The artist’s intentions seem to be both
phenomenological and Buddhist; concerned with the attention that might be
elicited from small differences and an emptiness or quiet that might be found
at the bottom of such attention.
Unlike Opalka and Kawara, whose consistency
is a possibility of conceptual art, Dreher’s single-mindedness perhaps arises
from a daily practice of painting, and from the humility and gravity of the
still life tradition.
The glass is empty but might be filled, or
might have been recently emptied. It is a glass for water rather than whisky or
wine. The poverty of the motif is an index of its seriousness, of what is at
stake.
Addressed again and again, the object yields
an infinite variety of lights and tones, of moods and
reflections. The task for the viewer may be less one of comparison across the
series than to be present without distraction on each occasion.
Nevertheless, all the paintings with this
title are gathered, within the two series, into the one idea. The going on and
returning, the again and again, the notion of a continuing practice, seem as essential, for
both painter and viewer, as the act of looking.
