Sixteen Conversations on Abstraction: Tool One (Template Ruler 1-5) is an edition developed by Riet Wijnen and consists of a set of five template rulers designed by five artists and graphic designers: Dafne Boggeri, Linda van Deursen, Mandy El-Sayegh, Ima-Abasi Okon and Haegue Yang, which are collected in a handmade etui.
Wijnen uses the template ruler in her practice as a tool to create type designs that balance between being abstract forms and readable letters, these designs she applies in her woodcuts and other sculptural works. She is interested in the template ruler as a tool that slows down the act of writing: words fall apart into letters, and letters become forms rather than meaning. Here the act of writing becomes a reflection on language itself, language being an abstract construct that we often inhabit as if it is a part of us rather than seeing it as a tool that we use.
The edition is produced on the occasion of Wijnen’s solo exhibition Sixteen Conversations on Abstraction (table / table) at Kunstverein Milano, and in collaboration with P/////AKT, Amsterdam, San Serriffe, Amsterdam and Kunstverein Toronto.
