What System II
November 2023
Newspapers, ink, string, chalk on paper
As in Dear Donald, the base is formed by newspapers dipped in colored ink. These are rolled up and strung together to form long chains. The fixed format and inflexibility of these rolls largely determine the form and possibilities of the installations. They form, as it were, a system with which I will have to work. My research focuses mainly on how to use this system, but at the same time on how to achieve a freedom.
Because of their tenuous and suspended form in space, the constructions act as thin frames of the air/emptiness, which thereby becomes an experiential component. The viewer is drawn into an almost weightless and timeless whole. Up close, the colors and words of the rolled-up newspapers enter into new relationships, both among themselves and with the surrounding space, and the viewer is brought back into the here and now.
(The moment the chains hang on the wall, new areas of inquiry arise for me. When is it a decoration? When and by what can the work transcend this? How do I view the decorative? When is decoration meaningful?)