Drawings

The Mozarteum in Salzburg; Maybe It Was 1953 [2009-ongoing]
A novel in drawings, to be installed in various ways…

The premise of this ongoing drawing installation involves writing a novel in pictures. I wanted to construct a loose, splintered narrative that charted a course through several years of my life, as seen through drawings. I started collecting pictures of old photographs from flea markets — the only consistent element connecting the pictures being the subject matter, which was other people’s families. I didn’t know what to call these pictures, how to address their importance. They came from different decades, different cultures, they were in color and black and white. Maybe they were only snapshots, throwaways, and the real pictures remained in frames or on stairwells in grandchildren’s houses.

What did it mean for a life to presumably end and the detritus — the photographs of one’s life — to pass on to strangers? I thought this was somehow an analogy for constructing a novel. I thought the process of working my way into this installation might link up my writing and my art-making process, a direct connection as yet unrealized in either practice. Somewhere between Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, this project should be seated.

The Mozarteum in Salzburg, Maybe It Was 1953 references Thomas Bernhard’s novel The Loser, an imagined memory of a pianist who was in school studying alongside Glenn Gould. The passage of time, exploration of memory and our imagined past were all themes that existed in my paintings, and I wanted to study them in another medium, combining literature as well. As it now stands, ideally this project would exist as a large-scale coffee table book, a complete roomful of framed drawings, installed wall to wall, and an ongoing piano recital to be played within the space of the installation.

The Mozarteum in Salzburg; Maybe It Was 1953 Aria / Prelude

The Mozarteum in Salzburg; Maybe It Was 1953 Chapter 1

The Mozarteum in Salzburg; Maybe It Was 1953 Chapter 2

The Mozarteum in Salzburg; Maybe It Was 1953 Chapter 3

subsequent chapters and installation shots coming soon…
The Mozarteum in Salzburg; Maybe It Was 1953 Chapter 4
The Mozarteum in Salzburg; Maybe It Was 1953 Chapter 5
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The Mozarteum in Salzburg; Maybe It Was 1953 Aria da Capo