Repetition

About

Repetition is the basis of ornament: friezes of palmettes, woven patterns, tiled walls. Ancient builders used it to project power, as in the files of tribute bearers on the Apadana stairways at Persepolis. In modern art it became a subject in its own right. Claude Monet's series of grainstacks and Rouen Cathedral in the 1890s repeated a motif to track changing light, and Constantin Brâncuși's Endless Column (1938) stacks one rhomboid unit into the air.

Mass production gave the 1960s a new vocabulary. Donald Judd had identical metal boxes fabricated and hung at equal intervals; Agnes Martin drew fine grids by hand; Andy Warhol screenprinted car crashes and film stars in rows. Roman Opalka painted consecutive numbers from 1965 until his death, and Yayoi Kusama covered canvases in endless nets. Look for the small differences between units: repetition by hand always drifts, and that drift is often the point.