on Barnett Newmans 'Zips'

 Newman called the stripes in his paintings "zips". Which gives you this idea that you can peel apart the canvas to reveal a sub-reality to the new beauty he was investigating. he felt that old standards of beauty were irrelevant, and that the modern world had made traditional style and subject invalid.

the emptiness of the works is punctuated by the zips, declaring the void with something that references human construct. i see them as a reminder of our timelines - life - our passage through time and nothingness.

the zips are something, they operate and guide.
they act like lines on a road, to keep us from disappearing into the grains of the cosmos. they zip open a truth in much the same way zen philosophy does. "everyday life is the path".

even though Newman said that he did not divide space, i think he does, but that does not mean the pictures become restricted or confined. the zips actually expand the horizons he presents, our eyes going beyond the picture frame in search of the continuation. space is divided, and then multiplied.
when asked about what his paintings could mean to the world, he said,"if read properly, the end of all state capitalism and totalitarianism".