Minuit! (...)ou l'appartement à la mode. 1920

This is Henri Reidel's “Minuit! (...)ou l'appartement à la mode,” and it’s hard to put a date on it, but it’s clearly of its time, with the controlled mark-making and distinctive pastel colour palette. Looking at this print, I get the sense of how artmaking is about setting up rules, then seeing what happens. The pale background is almost completely covered with pattern, and this leaves a sense of richness and artifice. The woman sits in the middle with an expression of slightly pained delight. Her body is doll-like, almost a series of layered cakes, but the shadow behind her head gives us something more solid. That shadow makes me think of Giorgio de Chirico, or perhaps something later like Philip Guston. Art is a conversation, right? It goes back and forth, changes its mind. And it’s never quite resolved. It’s like a feeling, it’s never just one thing.