Plan 1960

This intaglio print by Jirí Balcar, made sometime around 1960, is a real page-turner. I imagine Balcar hunched over a metal plate, scratching away at the surface. A flurry of lines, like a jazz solo on copper. There's this tension between the precision of the diagram and the looseness of the handwritten notes. It's like he's trying to map out something intangible, maybe a feeling or a thought. The way the ink clings to the etched lines gives it this depth and texture, like an old wall with layers of graffiti. Balcar was playing with these ideas of order and chaos, control and surrender, a conversation so many artists were having at the time. It reminds me a little of Twombly's scribbles or maybe some of Rauschenberg's layered prints.