Krantenknipsel uit archief Philip Zilcken Possibly 1913

This snippet of newsprint about Philip Zilcken comes to us from an anonymous hand, its edges foxed and softened by time. The physical presence of the thing, its very objecthood, becomes the main event. I am drawn to the casual marks, the numbering scribbled in pencil on the upper-left corner. It's a ghost of record-keeping. The printed text announces a celebration of painter Th. van Hoytema's 50th birthday and his lithographic achievements, especially his popular calendar. I think about the layers of mediation: an artist, a journalist, a printer, an archivist, and now us, peering at this fragment. This little scrap of paper, barely clinging to existence, echoes the ephemeral nature of artmaking itself. It reminds me of something like a Schwitters collage, pieced together from the ephemera of everyday life. Art is, if nothing else, a conversation across time, a collage of ideas, a continual process of exchange.