Locations 1969

Richard Artschwager, sometime in the twentieth century, made ‘Locations’ with… well, with a bunch of stuff! He’s got this ongoing motif of a rounded rectangle, or maybe it's a lozenge, which recurs throughout his work. It’s like a speech bubble, only empty. In this piece, the lozenges appear as slick, dark, isolated forms – but they’re also framing devices. Look at the one containing a dense, bristly oval inside a blue patterned box. The textures in this area are intriguing. I love the way the fuzzy shape contrasts with the hard lines of the frame, creating a push and pull. Artschwager used industrial materials like formica and celotex. These materials are really tactile, and he plays with their textures to create surprising effects. The surfaces feel familiar, but they're deployed in ways that mess with our sense of space and perception. Artschwager's work shares sensibilities with that of Jasper Johns. Both artists blur the boundaries between painting and sculpture, representation and abstraction, challenging our assumptions about art and the everyday. With this piece, Artschwager reminds us that art is an ongoing conversation, always questioning, always evolving.