Gateway 1911

Roberto Montenegro drew this drawing called "Gateway" with ink on paper. It's all about the marks here, the way the ink sits on the paper, creating these intricate patterns, like a meditative process. It reminds me of automatic drawing, where you let your hand wander and see what emerges. Check out the skull on the left pillar. See how the ink is scratched in to show texture in the stone, like the lines on a craggy face? That skull is kind of staring at the statues beyond the gate, as if they might hold a secret to the other side. I think of Klee's architectural fantasies sometimes, and how artists talk to each other across time. It’s like Montenegro picked up a thread of Klee's thinking and ran with it, adding his own personal twist. Art's never really about final answers, is it? More about keeping the questions alive.