Artless Art

Simply watch everything going on without attempting to change it in any way, without judging it, without calling it good or bad. Just watch it. That is the essential process of meditation.

—Alan Watts, Zen Master

While living in New York after graduate school, Ireland started his 94-Pound Series (1975), a turning point in his art. It consisted of works made from an ordinary 94-pound sack of cement purchased at the hardware store.

To make the series, Ireland first spread the sack of dry cement like a carpet throughout his studio. Each day, he took some of the material and made simple, all-over paintings until the cement was depleted. He then methodically discarded the paintings each day, until they were almost gone.

Ireland’s intent with these repetitive pieces was to work in a meditative state of aesthetic detachment, to remove the traces of his personal control and self-expression.