dArt International Magazine

by Steve Rockwell

dArt magazine is pleased to introduce TWINNING, the application of a game structure to its Playing Card feature. When presented with cards bearing images from dArt back issues cropped to playing card size, a participant is asked to pair up any two from cards presented. While the choice on the surface may be no more profound than “liking the combination,” something deeper may have been at the root of the picks. Even if this is not the case, the resultant pairing of images affords the chance to answer questions that the art itself may be posing. This had certainly been true for writer Bruce Bauman, who in his The Empty Deep article about Gehard Richter said of the exhibition that it “forced me to reevaluate why I write about art.”

Cropped details of Gerhard Richter’s 1982 oil on canvas, Two Candles (Zwei Kerzen), and on the right Deiter Mammel’s Saddy. Collage produced 2021 by Steve Rockwell on dArt International paper over pine frame, 8.5″ x 10″

*Karin Mamma Anderson (left) and Philip Taaffe* were “twinned” by dArt contributor Gae Savannah. The Anderson image was cropped from the Emese Krunák-Hajagos article When Darkness Falls in the Fall 2016 edition of dArt. The Philip Taaffe image came from the same dArt edition and was part of an article by Christopher Hart Chambers, Abstract But Not.

The above eight playing cards-sized images were cropped from dArt back issues. From left to right: Karin Mamma Anderson, Deiter Mammel, Alberto Giacometti, Kurt Schwitters, Philip Taaffe, Joe Goode, bunny and carrots from a Katharine Carter and Associates ad, and Gerhard Richter.

This TWINNING of images was inspired by a recent visit to the home of collector and former dArt associate, Roy Bernardi, when presented with eight of my playing card works mounted on dArt International paper. Two had stood out as ones that he preferred: Richter’s Two Candles and Saddy, an acrylic on canvas painting by Deiter Mammel, cropped from the dArt advertisement of his 2016 HOT exhibition at Christopher Cutts Gallery in Toronto.

Every copy of the coming edition of dArt International magazine will be unique. The projected signed limited edition will feature dArt‘s “Playing Cards,” hand cut from back issues and tipped into a reproduced image of a dArt International paper mat.