Lost Space 1989

This work by Guy Mees is made from what looks like yellow tape. I imagine him meticulously placing it just so, on a white surface. The yellow itself is like a concentrated beam of sunlight, cutting across the pristine field. I think about Guy Mees, snipping and sticking, building up this simple form, maybe thinking about the legacy of Matisse's cut-outs, or Lucio Fontana's spatial games. There's something so pure about this gesture, this yellow curve against the blank. It’s like a smile, or a question mark, floating in the void. But there’s also something fragile about it. It’s just tape, after all, stuck onto something. Yet within that simplicity lies a whole world of possibilities, of space and form and color playing off each other, shifting like sand. It’s a conversation with all the artists who came before, a nod to the endless possibilities of reduction and invention.