Écriture 10.2.63 1963

Editor: This is Jean Degottex's "Écriture 10.2.63" from 1963. It appears to be made with ink and pen, and the dark backdrop makes the lines almost leap off the page. It strikes me as a very internal, almost meditative piece. What do you see in it? Curator: Oh, I'm glad you said meditative. It really is, isn't it? Degottex, for me, is all about that raw, almost frantic energy contained within these self-imposed limitations. The spartan color palette and limited strokes force him to really wrestle with that emptiness. Imagine the ink, how it bled, how it caught. What does "writing" mean when you're purposefully stripping away meaning? Does he replace something, maybe even find it? Editor: It’s interesting you say frantic, because I read it as quite calm, but I guess that contrast is part of its appeal! All those different perspectives layered in together. Curator: Absolutely! Like gazing into your own mind at 3 AM, trying to make sense of… well, anything. Don’t you get the sense he’s almost deleting as he creates? Erasing language, rebuilding it as pure feeling? The title itself, Écriture -- that tension is deliberate, I suspect. Do you feel that yourself? Editor: Now that you point it out, yes! It feels like the beginning and the end of language, somehow at once. Curator: Precisely! The tension is so rich – and ultimately really beautiful, I think. Degottex doesn’t solve anything for us, which I kind of adore. What did you take from this? Editor: I appreciate how what seems simple is actually a whole internal landscape being drawn. There's much more complexity and nuance to consider than I initially thought.