LA (drawing in ink plus one mylar) 1994

Saul Steinberg made this ink and mylar drawing, LA, at an undetermined date. I see him using simple materials, in an unlabored way, as a starting point for an investigation. It’s like doodling as a way of thinking. The drawing has this lightness of touch, with a linear simplicity that’s almost cartoonish. Look at the way he renders the palm trees as geometric forms, or the dog on wheels, like some kind of surrealist hot rod. The line is so spare, so un-precious, that it makes you want to grab a pen and join in. It makes me think of Magritte, with a similar deadpan delivery. There’s this great ambiguity too; is it a landscape or a set of architectural forms? A real place or an imaginary one? It’s this uncertainty that makes it so engaging, and it’s what keeps me looking, thinking, and asking questions. Art isn’t about answers, it’s about the conversation.