Basket, Table, Door, Window, Mirror, Rug #21 1974

Richard Artschwager made this drawing on paper. It depicts an empty room, each object reduced to its most basic outline, a conceptual game of form and space. I wonder what it was like for Artschwager to decide what to include and exclude. The table in the middle of the room, formed of cross hatched lines, seems to function as a focal point despite its emptiness. The scene is like a stage set, each element carefully placed. It reminds me of Giotto's interior spaces, stripped back to the bare minimum. It’s not quite realism, not quite abstraction, but something in between. This piece also calls to mind the work of Sol LeWitt, who was interested in the idea of art as a set of instructions or a system. Artschwager seems to be working with a similar approach here, reducing the world to its most basic components, like a kind of architectural language. There’s a playfulness in the way he manipulates perspective.