A series of drawings considered the starting point of the artist's mature work.
Linguistic and visual representation intersect in Irma Blank's pastel-colored, script-like “Eigenschriften” (Self-Writings, 1968–73). The cycle stems from Blank's experience moving to Italy in the 1960s from Germany, where she was born in 1934. No longer surrounded by her native language and unable to express herself through words, this form of writing became a type of escape for Blank. The slender lines of these works are reminiscent of writing, but one that is incomprehensible. Without any specific meaning, the work is pure sensation transmitted from the hand to the surface of the page, from the body to the work.
Alongside more than three hundred full-color reproductions of the “Eigenschriften” works, this extensive monograph includes a text by
Luca Lo Pinto examining the artistic and historical influences on Blank's cycle of drawings, considered “an exercise of subtraction to reach a basic form of writing,” while Douglas Fogle's essay looks at Blank's work through the lens of artists such as
Robert Rauschenberg and
John Cage, in terms of a shared practice of repetition, as well as the work of the writers Robert Walser and
W. G. Sebald.
Irma Blank (1934-2023) was a German-Italian artist. Her works are characterized by the production of asemantic writing and graphics that are close to the work of
Mirtha Dermisache or Hanne Darboven. Her practice is envisioned as a total sensory cycle including sight, hearing (audio recordings of her readings), touch (manipulative drawings), as well as bodily presence with performed actions and readings. She participated in documenta 6 in Cassel in 1977 and in the Biennale of Venice in 1978. Like many women artists of her generation, Irma Blank received late recognition. Her works are present in the collections of a large number of international museums.
