Twentieth Century Ikon Series 8.8.67 IV 1967

Bob Law made this drawing, Twentieth Century Ikon Series 8.8.67 IV, in 1967, and looking at it I think the process of making the work is really what is important here. The hand-drawn lines on the off-white paper suggests a geometric space, but the slight unevenness of the hand means that this perfection is unattainable. It’s interesting to see the graphite marks where he’s drawn the lines. You can see the wobble and the care with which he’s tried to construct this abstract space. The bottom section, is it closer or further away than the two squares above? I find it hard to tell, and this ambiguity makes the work a constant shifting of perception, like a Agnes Martin drawing. This idea of the imperfect, of the hand-made, puts me in mind of Sol Lewitt's wall drawings, where the instructions are as much the artwork as the execution. There's something really beautiful about that, a set of rules or instructions for making something, and the inevitable failures and slippages that occur when we try to realize them. Art isn’t about perfection, it's about the human.