
Wallace Berman
Untitled I-III, 1975
Negative verifax collage
76,8 x 83,8 cm (30 1/4 x 33 in.)
Emblematic of Berman’s grid series, the regular pattern of this Verifax Collage accentuates the mechanical process, as well as it emphasizes the artist’s repetitive creative ritual, akin to a meditative...
Emblematic of Berman’s grid series, the regular pattern of this Verifax Collage accentuates the mechanical process, as well as it
emphasizes the artist’s repetitive creative ritual, akin to a meditative trance. In the grids, the material encounters the mystical; repetition meets uniqueness; uniformity clashes with disparity; the ubiquitous hand holding a radio vies with the varying images it
frames. The lay out naturally prompts the viewer to «read» the work like a book page, like a comic strip, from frame to frame, and to
examine the details up close. However, frequent black rectangles attract the eyes randomly and break the regularity, acting like visual pauses similar to silences in music, to punctuation marks in a text. The linear reading is further disturbed by arrows pointing nowhere, impenetrable scribbles, and Hebrew letters (read from right to left) that don’t spell any words.
emphasizes the artist’s repetitive creative ritual, akin to a meditative trance. In the grids, the material encounters the mystical; repetition meets uniqueness; uniformity clashes with disparity; the ubiquitous hand holding a radio vies with the varying images it
frames. The lay out naturally prompts the viewer to «read» the work like a book page, like a comic strip, from frame to frame, and to
examine the details up close. However, frequent black rectangles attract the eyes randomly and break the regularity, acting like visual pauses similar to silences in music, to punctuation marks in a text. The linear reading is further disturbed by arrows pointing nowhere, impenetrable scribbles, and Hebrew letters (read from right to left) that don’t spell any words.
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