Basket, Table, Door, Window, Mirror, Rug #41 [recto] 1974

Richard Artschwager made this drawing, Basket, Table, Door, Window, Mirror, Rug #41, using pen and ink. The lines look like they are describing some place that can’t really exist. The different planes intersect and butt up against one another in a slightly wonky way. It makes me think of the spatial experiments of Cubism, or maybe some of the surrealist interiors of de Chirico. The drawing is trying to describe a common, domestic space, but it’s doing it in a way that feels very alien, and the tilt of the picture plane contributes to the unease. I wonder if Artschwager was thinking about how we perceive space, and how difficult it is to translate three dimensions onto a two-dimensional surface. It reminds us that painting is always an interpretation, never a perfect representation. I think that Artschwager asks us to consider painting as a philosophical inquiry into how we see and experience the world around us.