Scanning Sequence
An example of Stuart’s frottages, the works that comprise Scanning Sequence were created by placing sheets of paper on the ground and rubbing their surfaces with graphite and earth collected from the site, thereby capturing the topography of a particular terrain. What results is an abstract document created not through representational means but through physical contact between medium and referent, evoking the place it commemorates through texture and material alone. While the works themselves possess a concrete physicality and invoke vast geological time, their title locates them firmly in the modern era: the phrase "scanning sequence" refers to the flicker rate of a televisual image, which is adjusted so as to create the illusion of continuity.
Artwork Details
- Title: Scanning Sequence
- Artist: Michelle Stuart (American, born Los Angeles, 1933)
- Date: 1969–70
- Medium: Graphite and earth on 4 sheets of paper, in artist frames
- Dimensions: Framed works (each): 24 × 24 × 2 7/8 in. (61 × 61 × 7.3 cm)
Installed work: 24 in. × 8 ft. 4 in. × 3 in. (61 × 254 × 7.6 cm) - Classification: Drawings
- Credit Line: Purchase, Bequest of Gioconda King, by exchange, 2013
- Object Number: 2013.164a–d
- Rights and Reproduction: © Michelle Stuart
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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Michelle Stuart
1969
Charles Demuth
1928
Stuart Davis
1924
Horace Pippin
1944
Hughie Lee-Smith
1994
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