MM
Great Jones Alley
The work of Tony Lewis (born 1986, Los Angeles, CA) appeared in ICA’s 2017 exhibition Speech/Acts. Working primarily with graphite and paper, Lewis is interested in exploring issues of race and power through text and language. His work utilizes fragmentation in his large-scale drawings as a primary means to interrogate language and its mobilization in constructing race, and he is often linked with artists such as Glenn Ligon for his interest in language and abstraction.
MM is a limited edition print produced exclusively for ICA’s 2019 Benefit. For the work, Lewis turned to Bill Watterson’s iconic comic strip Calvin and Hobbes to create poetry from the comic’s text bubbles. Working with pencil and correction fluid, Lewis obliterates aspects of each comic cell, leaving remnants of Watterson’s creation visible and newly constructed from a black subject position.
