This entry was written for, and is up today at, zoeryanprojects, more information below. ** I walked by this Mondrian one day at the Art Institute, just wandering with a friend. I am tall, and she is taller, carries herself like a long line and speaks in lineated prose, and, although she was in another room when I happened on this painting, the elongation of space was a part of my impression. I first became aware [...] more

This week I seem to be thinking about art that thinks about writing. I spend a lot of my time thinking about how to write about art. A reversal is interesting: how art considers writing. Earlier this week, I looked at Tara Geer, and at Alberto Giacometti, both of whom use line in ways that think about writing. Today when I woke up what was in my mind was Anni Albers Study for Six Prayers, IV , which I saw a few times at the Art Institute [...] more

Giacometti made this portrait of the British art critic David Sylvester in 1960: I think a restful thing about Giacometti is the way different permutations of the same lines and shadings -- the same darkly scratched lines and the same shadings of gray, white, and black -- constitute both the figure and the ground.     A person is a coalescence.   And derives substantiality from the abstract.   The longer you look, the more humane this seems.   [...] more