Brief aan Max Dittmar Henkel Possibly 1926

This is a letter written in 1926 by Johan Enschedé & Zn, a Dutch printing company. It’s on paper, of course, and has this really great combination of formal, typeset text, alongside informal handwriting. I think about the materiality of language a lot. I mean, look at how the type sits on the page, all neat and orderly. Then your eye is drawn down to the scrawled signatures and notes at the bottom, full of personal energy. I love how handwriting can be so revealing, like a direct line to someone’s thoughts. The letters and words become marks and lines. The real energy for me here is in that contrast, the tension between the formal and the informal, the public and the private. It reminds me a bit of Cy Twombly, who was so good at layering different kinds of marks and gestures. For Twombly, art was an ongoing conversation, building on what came before, and I think you can see that here too. Art is always about exchange, about taking something and making it your own.