Plan 1960

Jirí Balcar made this print, Plan, in 1960, and it looks like he used a lot of different graphic techniques to create the image. There are hard lines, soft washes, and what looks like handwriting. It’s this combination that makes the piece so interesting. I love the way that the crisp geometry of the graph is offset against the fluid, almost illegible script, which gives the print a kind of poetic tension. It’s like he's trying to reconcile the rational with the irrational. You can see how the plate hasn’t been perfectly cleaned, so you get this ghosting effect across the surface of the paper. This reminds me of Cy Twombly, another artist who liked to play with the relationship between language and abstraction. Both artists show us that art is not just about technical skill, but about the process of thinking and feeling. And maybe that’s the real plan here.