Fairly Mean/Mean Fairly 1995

Curator: Al Taylor created "Fairly Mean/Mean Fairly" in 1995. The artwork employs ink on paper to explore the interplay between geometric forms and language. What springs to mind as you look at it? Editor: Gosh, it looks like a game I used to play where you try to trace your finger through a maze! Except, this maze is… stern, almost unsettling in its precision. Like a corporate flowchart designed by someone who really dislikes paperwork. Curator: That's an interesting observation. Taylor's work often engages with systems—order and disorder—and in this drawing, he's layering alphabets with abstract shapes. This layering reflects a kind of cultural coding where language intersects and maybe even conflicts with visual perception. He positions words like ‘fairly’ and ‘mean’ at different orientations in relation to one another. This challenges our immediate comprehension of those concepts. Editor: Right. I’m also curious about the contrast. The ‘fairly’ side is somehow both open and constrained with all those black columns – is that how fairness operates? You have certain boundaries? Whereas the “mean” side almost feels a little more, what’s the word, fragmented? It’s not as solid, the columns almost give the opposite affect! So, does that speak to something inherent, something more broken in cruelty? Curator: That's a compelling interpretation. Examining how those terms—'fairly' and 'mean'—are visually framed allows us to reflect on their usage, culturally and psychologically. Consider the use of the rigid boxes. The boxes that almost serve to isolate segments of those words while tethering them to vertical columns, acting as constricting infrastructure or pathways… Editor: Oh! Paths... So, in a way, we are led through each letter! Like trying to extract each notion embedded in fairness and meanness individually. Even their own, like little chambers, perhaps even the way we internally house those states or how language limits or frames those human experiences. Like… can you ever extract FAIR without LY? Is that possible? Are these words fixed experiences? That’s just wild, actually. Curator: It underscores Taylor's keen engagement with semiotics and structuralism. Language and its meaning are, in this drawing, literally diagrammed to showcase not only definition, but also perhaps limitation and its structural potential. Editor: Yes! Which means this piece sort of makes you confront all sorts of preconceived ideas regarding morality—fair play and unkindness, and even more significantly the space for both simultaneously. Wow, thanks, Al Taylor! I see now, "Fairly Mean/Mean Fairly" does way more than present alphabets. I appreciate the nuance in all of this.