Untitled 1969

Richard Artschwager made this Untitled piece using charcoal and paper, and it’s all about seeing how much you can get out of something so simple. Look closely, and you’ll notice these slightly wavering vertical lines, like handmade pinstripes, interrupted by tiny horizontal spurs. The texture of the charcoal against the paper gives it this grainy, almost ethereal quality. It's like he's trying to capture the feeling of a space rather than depicting any specific object. The spurs almost read as small, folded-back corners or misplaced staples. There’s something about the restraint in this work that reminds me of Agnes Martin, in the way that both artists use repetition and subtle variation to create these immersive, almost meditative surfaces. It’s like they’re both nudging us to slow down and really look, to find the extraordinary in the ordinary. And that, to me, is what art is all about.