Football c. 1940

Joseph Vogel made this lithograph, “Football,” using black ink. It's a collision, right? It is like multiple different things are occurring at once, or are layered on top of each other, creating a kind of puzzle, or a dream. I am imagining Vogel in his studio, a mad scientist of sorts, putting disparate images together. The starkness of the black ink almost feels like a challenge, doesn’t it? I bet Vogel mixed his own ink, trying to get it just right. I can imagine him wiping the plate, testing, proofing, and adjusting until the tonal balances appear just so. He is a kind of tonal wizard here, because the whites seem so bright against the black. What I see here reminds me a little bit of Picasso or Braque—and like them, Vogel is trying to find a way to put together a new kind of picture of the world. And that is what all artists are trying to do in one way or another, engaging in this conversation across time. Like a relay race, artists are passing on the baton, inspiring one another to embrace the ambiguity, finding new ways of seeing and understanding, together.