David Diao Hijacks the History of Modernism to Make It More Inclusive

David Diao Hijacks the History of Modernism to Make It More Inclusive

Barnett Newman’s abstract paintings—imposing monochromes interrupted by mysterious thin “zips” of color—have been known to inspire extreme forms of wonderment and veneration. Art critic Peter Schjeldahl reported in 1970, the year Newman died, that grown men sobbed in front of the artist’s 1958–66 series “Stations of the Cross,” a group of 14 paintings that ostensibly narrates Jesus Christ’s last day but doesn’t explicitly depict it. Three decade…