This work, is part of Mangelos' "Negation de la peinture“ series. As the artist describes "The phase of denying painting started at the same time as the black slates and the letters. I denied painting by painting over some reproductions with black and then writing underneath that this was negation of painting or anti-painting".
The datation of the work 1951-1956 refers to his self-assigned fifths period of production. Mangelos did indeed believe that a persons life could be devided into several periods and declared that there could be 9 1/2 Mangelos, hereby de facto foreseeing the year of his death in 1987.