Piano #1 1965

Richard Artschwager's "Piano #1" is made from wood, veneer, and plastic laminate, assembled into a tantalizingly incomplete rendering. The dark, rippling wood grain at the top is so evocative. The black stripe plunges down like a lonely diver into a pale sea. I wonder, did he find these materials and then the idea emerged, or was it the other way round? I imagine him in his studio, puzzling over how to make something so familiar appear so strange. I want to touch it, to feel the contrast between the slick laminate and the textured wood. Does the choice of materials point to a high-art joke about the readymade? Artschwager, like many artists, invites us to reconsider the everyday objects we take for granted. There is a lineage here that reaches back to the early cubists who were also interested in how to represent real life from odd angles. It reminds me that art is an ongoing conversation, a game of telephone across generations.