Basic Information
Title: Why
Artist(s):
Leslie Roberts
Date Created: 2019
Unframed Dimensions: 24 x 18 in.
Medium: gouache, graphite, ink, and colored pencil on gessoed panel
Inventory ID: Roberts-2019-02
Description
signed, titled, dated, size, and medium written on the back of the panel
handwritten text: Sentences preceded by “why,” from news reports, email, and other sources.
Transcript:
Is this happening
Did I get this
Aren’t people angrier
Do you want this job
Can’t we sleep
Am I writing you
Do filmmakers love van Gogh
Would a company buy back its own stock
Settle for less than the best
Do you ask
Make things worse than they already are
Would anyone fly anything but nonstop
Wait another minute
Do we eat what we eat
Don’t you wash your blond child’s hair in dead champagne
Play games with your health like this
Do people feel personally affected by the finale
Take risks
titled above the image upper left signed, titled, and dated on the back of the panel handwritten text and list of US passport regulations: Excerpt: your photographs must be / two by two inches in size / identical / taken within the last six months / showing current appearance / color or black-and-white/ full […]
title, date, size, medium, and artist’s notes written on the back of the panel handwritten text list of oppositions: True/false, anxious/serene, bizarre/ordinary, positive/uncertain, digital/analog, uptown/downtown, compliant/resistant, rough/gentle, systematic/arbitrary, orderly/disheveled, heavy/light, friend/foe, binary/non-binary . . .
titled above the image upper left signed, and dated on the back of the panel Handwritten text: Signs and ads read during a subway trip Excerpt: Lorimer St, Metropolitan Grand, plan ahead, I was scared silly, local, litter stops here, help point, service exit, apply now, emergency instructions, caution, this area has been baited […]
titled above the image upper left titled on the back of the panel Handwritten text: Found words and phrases preceded by “in case of,” listed alphabetically. Transcript: accident, allergic reaction, avalanche, bad weather, bee sting, bankruptcy, bad news, choking, concussion, copyright infringement, divorce, death, damage or loss, doubt, emergency, Ebola, epileptic seizure, electric shock, […]
