Word: purplish
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Visual Parallel. Typically, each of Johnson's works focuses on one central emblem, stained into an unstretched canvas that hangs, like a banner, on the wall: an orange-gold cone hovering in a void of purplish red; an exhilarating surge of scrolling ocherous waves, speckled with jade and malachite green. Johnson is an exceptional colorist, both astringent and opulent, and his work-like many a Tibetan tanka or Indonesian temple door-makes no bones about its decorative aspect. Yet behind this seduction of the eye is a strange impersonality, as though Johnson's role in painting them...
Once inside the building, another shock awaits them. The maverick builder thinks elevators are "like coffins." Not here. They are garishly painted and lit in red and blue so that riders' faces acquire a purplish tinge. "Not always flattering, but it makes people talk," says Kaufman. "And conversation makes the trip into a human experience." Such experiences may not suit everybody, but the building is fully rented...