Thursday, August 27, 2026

Visual Preferences (20th Century: 1968)

John Torreano
I
1968
acrylic on canvas
Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas

David Alfaro Siqueiros
Mountainous Landscape
1968
lithograph
Dallas Museum of Art

Josef Albers
Homage to the Square (DR-b)
1968
screenprint
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Marie Cosindas
Yves Saint-Laurent, Paris
1968
Polaroid
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Ronald Kostyniuk
Relief Structure
1968
wood with enamel 
NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Niki de Saint-Phalle
Last Night I Had a Dream
1968
screenprint
Menil Collection, Houston

Gerhard Richter
Nanni and Kitty
1968
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Sigmar Polke
Corrected Lines on My Hand
1968
photo-lithograph
Art Institute of Chicago

Duane Michals
The Fallen Angel 1
1968
gelatin silver print
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Duane Michals
The Fallen Angel 2
1968
gelatin silver print
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Duane Michals
The Fallen Angel 3
1968
gelatin silver print
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Duane Michals
The Fallen Angel 4
1968
gelatin silver print
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Duane Michals
The Fallen Angel 5
1968
gelatin silver print
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Duane Michals
The Fallen Angel 6
1968
gelatin silver print
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Duane Michals
The Fallen Angel 7
1968
gelatin silver print
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Duane Michals
The Fallen Angel 8
1968
gelatin silver print
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Words

A sentence uttered makes a world appear
Where all things happen as it says they do;
We doubt the speaker, not the tongue we hear:
Words have no word for words that are not true.

Syntactically, though, it must be clear;
One cannot change the subject half-way through,
Nor alter tenses to appease the ear;
Arcadian tales are hard-luck stories too.

But should we want to gossip all the time,
Were fact not fiction for us at its best, 
Or find a charm in syllables that rhyme,

Were not our fate by verbal chance expressed,
As rustics in a ring-dance pantomime
The Knight at some lone cross-roads of his quest?

– W.H. Auden (ca. 1956)