Sunday, February 07, 2010

a note on the illustrations (or lack thereof)

Lawrence Weschler, "Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees,  A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin"   University of California Press 1982    ISBN 0-520-04595-5

"NOTE: For many years Robert Irwin forbade photographic reproductions of his paintings.  An early intuition in this regard hardened into an absolute conviction during the time he was creating his line, dot, and disc painting.  As will be seen in the text that follows, Irwin felt that a photograph would capture none of what the painting was about and everything that it was not about.   That is, a photograph could convey image but not presence. ....."