Calculations and Sketches 1956

Editor: Here we have Stuart Davis’s "Calculations and Sketches." There isn’t a date associated with this piece at the Harvard Art Museums, but it’s a small work on paper. It appears to be pen or pencil, and it looks like a study for a more complex piece. What do you see in this seemingly simple sketch? Curator: I see Davis wrestling with form and proportion, but also potentially critiquing the very systems we use to quantify and understand the world. The calculations feel almost like a challenge to the rigid structures of modernism. How do mathematical systems intersect, or perhaps collide, with artistic expression? Editor: So, the math isn't just planning, it's part of the statement? Curator: Precisely. The visible calculations disrupt any sense of seamless artistic creation, foregrounding the often-invisible labor and intellectual frameworks that underpin artistic production, even questioning their authority. It makes me think about the role of quantification in shaping our perceptions. What do you make of that? Editor: I hadn’t considered the social implications of math, but I see how it relates here, especially because it feels so raw. Curator: Indeed. Hopefully, it inspires us to think critically about all the systems that shape our experience.