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An Exercise in Constraints: Drawings by Wacław Szpakowski (1883-1973)

March 29, 2020 by Mariabruna Fabrizi Leave a Comment

Wacław Szpakowski was a Polish architect, engineer and artist. Starting at seventeen years old and throughout his whole life, he developed a series of ink drawings on tracing paper which would follow very specific constraints. Each drawing was traced with a single line which would never intersect itself. The line runs continuously and keeps a constant offset.

The final results are large variations of drawings which may recall simple patterns, schematic urban plans, or labyrinths. The process reminds a form of automatic writing where a few choices eventually provide a large variety of results. The appearance of the drawings and Szpakowski’s experimentation with a form of automatism, recalls works of artistic movements which developed after the first half of 20th century like Minimal Art. 

Szpakowski developed this work in complete isolation and these works were mostly unknown until 1978, five years after the architect’s death.

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