“Warren Neidich’s recent solo show in Berlin, “Each Rainbow Must Retain the Chromatic Signature, it . . . ,” comprised a triad of painting, sculpture, and installation that playfully pointed out the conditions of perception and the ways it can be manipulated and controlled. The exhibition included “Rainbow Brushes,” 2007–2008, a series of nine oversize paintbrushes that each feature a different sequence of colors, all taken from famous paintings throughout European art history. Neidich places the matching pigment on a piece of paper laid flat on the ground, then pulls a brush through it, leaving traces of color on the bristles like an afterimage. After Peter Paul Rubens 1636, 2007, is based on the rainbow found in Rubens’s 1636 painting Rainbow Landscape. Filled with browns and vibrant turquoise, the brush’s colors are quite different from those of the typical rainbow. According to the laws of optics, a rainbow consists of colors that follow one another in a fixed order. Neidich, on the other hand, presented a wide range of variations on this order drawn from various epochs of art history, so that the changing cultural and empirical conditions they represent are “made visible” in retrospect.” — Adina Popescu