UNTITLED PASSAGES
Editor de Zegher, director of the Drawing Center in New York, claims that we’re at a point in history where “what the penstroke linked together, the keystroke seems to have set apart” a little something for us to consider as we frantically type our next e-mail. In that context, she asks the reader to consider Michaux’s drawings, through which he tried to discover how the hand “talks.” Originally a poet, Michaux (1899-1984) investigated the connection among mind, hand, and paper, finally coming to believe that his markings were his “self.” Although Michaux’s art is highly subjective, he attempts a more universal goal of making conscious the flow of time, much as one would take a pulse. As a result, his work recalls Chinese calligraphy and Jackson Pollock. However, whereas artists like Pollock opened themselves to an external, higher, visionary surge, Michaux worked very much within the constraints of Western consciousness and his own personal systems. In addition to the drawings, this exhibition catalog contains several essays and an interview with Michaux by John Ashbery; a chronology of biographical information ends the book well. Recommended for libraries specializing in art history. Nadine Dalton Speidel, Seven Hills, OH
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