The Fourth 'Book of Schemes'. Album #2, the First Folder 1978

Valerii Lamakh made 'The Fourth "Book of Schemes"' using what looks like coloured pencils and ink. I can almost feel his hand moving across the page, carefully mapping out these diagrams. I imagine Lamakh, hunched over a table, his brow furrowed in concentration as he works. The precise lines and arrows suggest a logical system, but the bright colors disrupt any sense of rigid order. The arrows pointing in different directions, the circles, the squares. There is a wonderful back and forth rhythm, that almost all artists have, between freedom and structure. This piece reminds me of some of Paul Klee’s pedagogical sketchbooks at the Bauhaus, or even Hilma af Klint's diagrammatic paintings—all artists trying to visualize invisible structures. Ultimately, I think artists are always in conversation, borrowing, stealing, and transforming ideas across time. It reminds us that art is about seeing and thinking in new ways, and maybe even finding some beauty in the unknown.