David Reed: Rock Paper Scissors

"My plans are constantly changing"

"Rock Paper Scissors" by David Reed is the third volume in the "Kienbaum Artists' Books" library, which, in addition to providing an insight into the collection, is intended to convey an artistic position once a year in a comprehensive and high-quality form. The volume on David Reed contains 24 "Working Drawings" on the front and back, which document the process of creating the large-format paintings by the New York artist. They are created as diary-like drawings and accompany each individual painting, contain colour samples as well as thought processes and decisions, and are sometimes recorded over a period of years. The idea for these unusual works goes back to a conversation in the early 1990s with Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, in which they explicitly asked David Reed for drawings and referred to his notes, diagrams and plans in the studio. The conversation between the Vogels and Reed that now accompanies the volume revisits this situation and deals with the specific considerations regarding these works called "Working Drawings". We are thus given information in the work of the artist himself as to how his special all-over, the repeated loops and sweeps, the waves as brushstrokes and blots seemingly thrown gesturally onto the picture surface come about. However, these very unusual work sketches show very well how David Reed's examination of colour and abstraction comes about, how he consciously borrows from baroque paintings, abstract expressionism or minimal art, why he wants to make use of a viewer movement, how he literally sets his paintings in "vibration".