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Art Institute of Chicago

Throws Left, from the series "A History of Graph Paper"

John Houck

2014

Attribution
John Houck American, born 1977
Medium
Inkjet print
Physical dimensions
Image/paper, approx./sight: 75 × 57 cm (29 9/16 × 22 1/2 in.); Frame: 78.1 × 60.3 × 3.9 cm (30 3/4 × 23 3/4 × 1 9/16 in.)
Credit line
Purchased with funds provided by Larry Marx; Barbara and Lawrence Spitz Acquisition Fund
CATALOGUE RECORD

Museum metadata is available under CC0. Image availability and rights are separate; consult the source record.

Source rights statement: © 2014 John Houck

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From the museum

John Houck creates works that simultaneously embrace and resist digital technology through the use of repetitive processes. To make Throws Left Houck began with a childhood artifact—a box of baseball cards—that for him served as a tool for exploring memory outside of psychoanalysis. The artist first photographed the cards and their box in the manner of a commercial studio arrangement. He then used the resulting print as the backdrop for a new image of the same objects, repeating this process several times while modifying the composition or object in each iteration. The final image appears collaged or digitally altered but is in fact free of any such interventions. Instead, the spatially puzzling, multilayered composition reflects the idea that memory is rarely a product of systematized facts or data.

Description: Art Institute of Chicago · CC BY 4.0

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