Artists have been pushing back against ideological cultural imperatives since forever. An interesting example is three Chinese artists who called themselves the New Measurement Group. In an attempt to push back against cultural ideological mandates, they worked to create a new understanding so as to foster unfettered creative expression. The artists, Qian Weikang, Wang Luyan, […]
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24Feb
2017
BERGER: WORDS DON’T COUNT
2017
Two pages ago, faithful reader Robert seems to suggest that my John Berger quote (STONES IN YOUR POCKET), is taken out of context. So I went back to the section that Berger’s stones in your pocket quote was taken from, and I don’t think that the quote is out of context. Rather, the quote is […]
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22Feb
2017
DEPICTACTION
2017
Let’s attack another binary, representation (or depiction) vs abstraction. The representation / abstraction binary has informed our thinking in these pages since the beginning. This was first broached on the page LETTER TO HELEN. And it continues to set the boundaries of our transparent drawing trajectory. “A firm distinction between depiction (or representation) and abstraction […]
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20Feb
2017
STONES IN YOUR POCKET
2017
“So one asks oneself. Do words count? And there must sometimes come back a reply something like this: Words here are like stones put into the pockets of roped prisoners before they are thrown into the river.” p79. Berger, John. Bento’s Sketchbook. Random House. New York. 2011.
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17Feb
2017
TRAVEL BUILDING 1
2017
During a day trip to Sintra which is about an hour by train outside of Lisbon, we were walking hurriedly to catch the train. I was taken by this building. Yet there was no time to stop and take more than one photo of it. So that’s the photo below. Everything about this building is […]
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15Feb
2017
LISBON ALTES BELEM HOTEL
2017
Europe does modernism so well. There we were, walking along the river Tagus in Lisbon, and this beautifully modern building presents itself. I learned later that it is a hotel named the Lisbon Altes Belem Hotel. It was crisp, clean, and white. Along the south facade, there was this intricate set of sun shades that […]
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13Feb
2017
TRANSPARENT DRAWING AT NIGHT
2017
Can you draw transparently at night? Of course. Actually, it had never occurred to me to try. But there I was, sitting on our terrace in Barcelona after dark. And the photo below was part of my view. At which point I said, how about drawing this bell tower of the cathedral? My drawing above […]
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10Feb
2017
DO WE SEE IN PICTURES?
2017
If we don’t see in pictures, then why do we think it is so important to draw pictures? Steen Eiler Rasmussen gives us the following thought: “Ordinarily we do not see a picture of a thing but see an impression of the thing itself, of the entire form including the sides that we cannot see, […]
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8Feb
2017
INFINITELY EXTENSIVE
2017
John Berger, in the following passage, exhorts us to beware of the habitual gesture, the habitual line, and maybe all habits in general: “The lines of a sign are uniform and regular: the lines of a drawing are harassed and tense. Somebody making a sign repeats an habitual gesture: Somebody making a drawing is alone […]
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6Feb
2017
I’M ON A PLANE
2017
What shapes a plane? What is a plane? In our Transparent Drawings, we draw planes all the time. You might say that to draw an enclosed and resolved form, all we are drawing is planes. Most of them are curved and warped. But a Transparent Drawing is an assembly of connecting planes. A house is […]
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