The following statement was published in "Individuals: Post-Movement Art in America," an anthology edited by Alan Sondheim (E. P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1977, ISBN 0-525-47428-5), pages 122-135. More information about this book is given below. More recently it was published in "The Museum of Rhythm," edited by Natasha Ginwala and Daniel Muzyczuk (Sternberg Press and Muzeum Sztuki Lodz, 2018, ISBN 978-3-95679-379-02018). "The Museum of Rhythm" was an exhibition at Muzeum Sztuki Lodz, curated by Ginwala and Muzyczuk, which included seven of my drawings. Each of the following paragraphs appeared on a separate page, underneath a photograph of a drawing. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE by Robert Horvitz All my drawings are compounded out of two formal elements, the paper and the pen stroke. They invert each other's qualities in certain key ways. The pen stroke is concentrated, active, discrete and black. The paper is diffuse, passive, continuous and white. Their opposition is stable even under the most elaborate concatenation. My pen stroke evolved over a two-year period (1968-1970) into the briefest gesture I can make with the pen: I place the point on the paper and flick it towards me. The split-second acceleration of the point reduces the flow of ink until none reaches the paper at all, in about half an inch. I try to make all strokes exactly alike. I am barely aware of the act itself anymore; it is like an eyeblink. My external behavior is completely routine, allowing my attention to shift inward. The paper is a receptive ground, finite and unstructured. At the start of a drawing, it defines a field of potential that is gradually consumed as the strokes fill the surface. At the end, it remains as a projection of my activity. Since all the pen strokes are made in the same way and in the same direction, it is the paper that changes position. In fact, it is nearly always in motion. The drawing unfolds stroke by stroke. The progression builds on itself, tangles with its past. As each stroke endures on the paper, the sequence is transformed into a growing network of simultaneous relationships. Later events can and do redefine the significance of earlier events; events that happened at different moments are seen together. History foreshortens into structure. I never make preliminary sketches. Instead, I work out systems of constraint that govern the evolution of the drawing without eliminating free choice. (A fully constrained drawing, where the outcome is determined in advance, would not be worth executing.) By systematically limiting my options, I can create specific ranges and types of freedom. The visual consequences are often unexpected. There is no uniquely prescribed course of action. At every moment it is possible to imagine the drawing extending into a variety of futures. My decision to follow any one course closes off many others of equal interest and validity. Conflict and mediation. Some process of selection is called for that does not reduce to rules. Each option must be considered at several levels of impact. The effect on a given location, which can be foreseen very precisely, and the effect on the drawing as a whole, which can be foreseen only dimly, are the critical extremes. The long- and short-range implications are often inconsistent with one another. When that happens, I must rely on intuition. Improvisation takes over where necessity leaves off. The presence of so many options functions, paradoxically, as a sort of vacuum, drawing out personal judgment and making it ponderable. I use drawing as an introspective probe. It refracts my "mental weather" into observable patterns of preference and intention. Depending on how intense the experience is, it can resemble either meditation or celebration (the line between the two is somewhat arbitrary). As the conditions under which decisions are made vary (actually, there is only one decision--it is made over and over again), the subconscious roots of the process are revealed. Each stroke is the momentary consequence of an ongoing negotiation between pleasure and constraint, memory and inference. Many levels of thought are involved. Only the most superficial are informed by language. The first stroke, the first step into it, is always a sharp sensation: an eruption in the continuum, demanding repair. But once underway, I can only lose ground. Time passes. Choices are made. Tendencies compound themselves. Regions develop with unique local characteristics. Some are quite stable and expand into large areas, others dissipate quickly. Schemes and curiosities, shifts in attention, opinions and plans, all pass easily through the pen. But drawing is not a form of communication. I do not expect anyone to be able to read my thoughts in a finished work. My purposes are satisfied in the activity itself. Drawing is a tool of self-clarification. Its basis is the distinction between pen stroke and paper. This opposition, constantly re-enacted, is a source of dialectical energy. It enables me to construct artificial sitautions that amplify one or another type of experience, and thus the web of considerations underlying my actions in general begins to surface. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- MORE INFORMATION ABOUT "INDIVIDUALS": The other artists represented in this book were Walter Abish, Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, David Askevold, Alice Aycock, Nancy Wilson Kitchel, Alvin Lucier, Bernadette Mayer, Rosemary Mayer, Mike Metz, Ree Morton, Dennis Oppenheim, Adrian Piper and Charles Simonds. From the book's back cover: "INDIVIDUALS records in text and illustrations some of the significant work being created today by America's avant-garde artists. Alan Sondheim, a young artist/critic, has collected in this volume the work of fifteen artists who share a common stance--a sensibility--probably best described by the following adjectives: personal, eclectic, intellectual, literary, anti-reductive and historical. The work found in this volume can be seen as an attempt to clear space for 'the world of the self.' INDIVIDUALS should be studied by all interested in the newest directions being taken by American art." -----------------------------------------------------------------------------