a.k.a by Christopher Wool
Lot of 8
a.k.a is a work by Christopher Wool in which there are eight lithographs measuring 42 ½ × 34 in, or 108 × 86.4 cm. It is part of a series of abstract works that Wool was working on at the time.
There is a particular mark of spontaneity in these works between the free drawing: fast, imprecise, random. The choice of letters and numbers is random. Wool typed them in succession on his keyboard as if recalling the automatic writing process of the surrealists.
But the technique and the typography come in tension with this spontaneity, due to the use of a well-known typeface, Times New Roman, and the lithographic process which requires time.
There is thus a temporality which is rather strangely divided between the fast pictorial gesture of the drawing and the long lithographic procedure – but with a choice of text that’s quite as spontaneous as the drawing.
6/8
