Resonant Thoughts: Calvin Tomkins’ “Vija Celmins’s Surface Matters” (2019)

“You do it again and again, and you sense that the thing is beginning to have a form that looks strong. And all the time you’re thinking, and making decisions.
The making, the devotion to making, is what gives it an emotional quality.”
– Vija Clemins 

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“What makes her images so alive is the consummate craftsmanship that goes into them—the hand, which knows things that the mind does not.”

“If you spend enough time on a work, something else might come into play.”

– Calvin Tomkins, Vija Clemins’s Surface Matters, The New Yorker