Blank 1930 - 1936

Editor: Here we have Niels Larsen Stevns’ *Blank,* a drawing done sometime between 1930 and 1936. It's... well, it's a blank page. Made with watercolors and colored pencil on paper, sitting in the Statens Museum for Kunst. I guess I'm just curious... what am I missing here? Curator: Ah, yes, *Blank*. A provocatively titled piece, wouldn’t you agree? What you're seeing is not merely an absence, my dear, but a possibility. Think of it as a silent stage, patiently awaiting its drama. A pregnant pause before the symphony begins. Niels Larsen Stevns offers us not a void, but rather the *potential* for anything and everything. Doesn’t that flip your perspective a little? Editor: I suppose so! It's still hard to wrap my head around. The artist made... nothing? Curator: Or perhaps the artist has made everything! He has given us the freedom, nay, the *responsibility*, to create. Consider it a mirror reflecting our own imaginative capacity, waiting to be activated. What sort of image do *you* project onto its pristine surface? What do *you* imagine blooming from the supposed emptiness? It isn't about what Stevns put there, it's about what he didn’t. Editor: So, the value lies in the viewer's response, not the art object itself? It's a call to action, almost? Curator: Precisely! It begs us to participate. Isn't that more exciting than a perfectly rendered still life, already resolved, already complete? Editor: You've given me a lot to consider. Thanks! I guess I'll look at blank pages a little differently from now on. Curator: That’s the spirit! Now go forth and fill some blanks with your own creative fire. The world awaits!