Min Jun Kim- Looking Outwards 6

The artwork that I would like to talk about today is from an artist named Jean Arp. This artwork is called According to the Laws of Chance, and it is made in the year 1933. The process of generating the art was dropping painted pieces of paper onto a surface. The idea is rather similar to that of Jackson Pollock’s drip painting, but this artwork dates back to before Pollack made his famous action paintings. The artist has other randomly generated art that is created in similar fashion, but the this particular artwork stood out to me.
What I admire about Arp’s art is that despite being randomly created, it is still on a rather subtle scale, where there aren’t too much clashing elements that compete for attention. The artist’s use of white space is what really gives this simple artwork the praise it deserves. The title really describes the artwork well, and I find the simplicity in the art to be very resembling of the design of nature.
Regarding the process, it is not a completely random piece of art. For one, the color of the paint was determined by the artist, and the number of the painted papers dropped was also in his control. The random aspects that go into the process are the shapes of the papers and where they are dropped.
The artist’s artistic sensibilities are manifested into the final form, when he is able to make deeply impactful pieces through the usage of randomness itself. Beauty is traditionally not attributed to randomness, but rather repetition and harmony, but Arp was able to tie the two together where randomness was used to create unsymmetrical yet harmonic piece.

Source: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/arp-according-to-the-laws-of-chance-t05005