R B Kitaj, The defects of its qualities 1967

Image reproduced from http://www.junghans-art.de/art/kitaj/kitaj_1967_k29.html

See also World ruin black magic http://col.lacma.org/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=image;hex=AC1999_35_34.jpg

Cy Twombly, Untitled 1970. Oil-based house paint and crayon on canvas. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: © 2004 Matthew Septimus

It has been said that Cy Twombly’s paintings resemble writing, or are a kind of écriture. Certain critics have seen parallels between his canvases and wall graffiti. This makes sense. In my experience, however, his paintings refer to more than all the walls I pass in cities and gaze at, or the walls on which I too once scrawled names and drew diagrams; his paintings, as I see them, touch upon something fundamental to a writer’s relationship with her or his language. Continue reading →