Delve into the overlooked and underappreciated artistic genre of text-based art. For centuries people have been using words in creative visual ways, but usually their work is either slotted into other genres or pushed aside completely, despite some of the biggest names in art fitting into this category.
During each show we’ll sit down for a talk with an artist who uses words as a major focus in their practice for an in-depth look at where is their work is taking them next, what are the ways that using text helps them get their message across, and what was it that drew them to this style in the first place.
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Delve into the overlooked and underappreciated artistic genre of text-based art. For centuries people have been using words in creative visual ways, but usually their work is either slotted into other genres or pushed aside completely, despite some of the biggest names in art fitting into this category.
During each show we’ll sit down for a talk with an artist who uses words as a major focus in their practice for an in-depth look at where is their work is taking them next, what are the ways that using text helps them get their message across, and what was it that drew them to this style in the first place.
From his breakthrough series "Anthology," which turned Calvin & Hobbes into poetry, to his epic installation pieces that transform William Buckley's arguments from his 1965 Cambridge debate with James Baldwin into graphite-coated strenography, Tony Lewis has carved a unique space for himself in contemporary drawing. Working mainly in graphite, Lewis' practice challenges the conventions of language and functions simultaneously as abstraction, text-based, conceptual, personal, and political, creating one of the more innovative bodies of work in art today. Tony joined me from his studio in Chicago to discuss the recent 4-person show he was a part of, What Drawing Can Be: Four Responses, at the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston, as well as how stenography found its way into his work, and what he had to sacrifice to create his Calvin & Hobbes-based series.
Photo: Evan Jenkins
https://massimodecarlo.com/artists/tony-lewis
https://www.menil.org/exhibition/what-drawing-can-be-four-responses
Finding the Words
Delve into the overlooked and underappreciated artistic genre of text-based art. For centuries people have been using words in creative visual ways, but usually their work is either slotted into other genres or pushed aside completely, despite some of the biggest names in art fitting into this category.
During each show we’ll sit down for a talk with an artist who uses words as a major focus in their practice for an in-depth look at where is their work is taking them next, what are the ways that using text helps them get their message across, and what was it that drew them to this style in the first place.
