All Is As All As As Yet Or As Yet: Work by Michael Milano and Luis Romero
Deeply inspired by axiomatic systems, formal logic, conceptual art, and traditional craft processes, the practice of Michael Milano attempts to work out every possibility within a finite set of parameters. He employs the tension generated between the labor of the mind and that of the body, in an attempt to formalize what a conceptual craft might be. Given seven colors, how many ways can they be combine in seven horizontal lines? Generating a pattern that answers this question and the drawings exhaust every permutation within this set of parameters. And while the number of possibilities is ultimately finite, they need not be few.
The works of Luis Romero present an active, open surface and suggest an area that is not visible. Much of his work is constructed through oppositions and cancellations: presence and absence; showing and hiding; physicality and illusion; systems and chance; openness and closure. Many of these drawings look for an ambivalent space. These drawings can be seen as handmade op art—haptic architecture—fetishes—toys.