Crowns and Last Masks
The last masks. Crowned, packed, and drawn in the dense scribble of the summer, these are the faces that ran alongside the cats and the portraits from August 20 to September 17, 2022. Then, after four weeks of silence, three works on October 15 close the collection: the first drawing redrawn, which its title calls a fork; number 300; and the collection piece, #0000. Twenty-one works.
A crown is a zigzag of three or five points on top of the head. It sits on a mask with X eyes, on a profile with a cigarette, on a winged figure, and on the skull of #0000. The eyes below the crowns are the summer's eyes, crosses and spirals in boxes, and the mouths are grilles of white teeth.
The room ends on the three works made on one day. Watch the first of them: it is the first drawing in the collection, drawn again ten months later, and the room's last word on what changed.
Crowns on August 20
Four masks from the first day of the room, August 20, 2022, all crowned or spiked.
NNOTB #235
A dense face with two spiral eyes in boxes, a long nose and a small mouth, drawn in red, blue and orange line over stripes of every color.
NNOTB #236
A purple crown with a yellow zigzag sits on a grey mask whose right eye is a red X over a yellow ring and whose left is a box of bars. The mouth is a grille of white teeth in a red box. The body below is a cage of black and yellow lines on a red block, and green and purple bars stand at the edges. It is the clearest crown in the room, drawn on the first morning.
NNOTB #238
A mask in profile facing left, with a crown of black spikes, a yellow spiral eye and a long grille of white teeth, on orange scribbled with blue.
NNOTB #239
A dense mask with a red X in a round eye and a white ring for the other, a bar of blue across the brow, a mouth of white and black bars, on stripes of orange, blue and purple.
Robots and a Sun
August 22 to 29. A crowned orange mask, a robot in white, a yellow face with a nose, and a sun with an X for an eye.
NNOTB #241
An orange mask with a crest of red spikes, a black spiral eye at the left, a white box eye at the right, and a mouth of white bars, on a ground of yellow and black bars.
NNOTB #250
A robot figure on white, its head a box with two glowing yellow eyes under spiky lids, a wide red mouth of white teeth, and a body of black and white bars with pink and blue inside. Red paint runs down the sides like spilled ink. It is the one mask in the room with a whole body and a white ground, and with the red at the edges it looks like it is standing in something.
NNOTB #259
A yellow face with a long nose, one eye a ring and the other a spiral, a bar of red across it, and a mouth of white teeth, on green and yellow bars.
NNOTB #262
A yellow sun with a face on a red ground: one eye an orange X, the other a black box, a zigzag of white teeth for a mouth, and pale drips running down from the bottom of the sun. Red strokes cross the sun from the left, and two small triangles stand at the bottom like tents. The sun fills most of the square and sits inside a soft white ring, so it glows.
September Masks
September 4 to 17. Eight masks: dense ones with X eyes and teeth, a sparse robot on lavender, a profile with a cigarette, a white oval on black, a winged figure, and a profile lit by a beam.
NNOTB #269
A dense mask with a red X in each boxed eye, a crown of yellow bars on top, a mouth of white teeth in a red box, and yellow ovals all around.
NNOTB #270
A purple scribble mask with a yellow bar through one eye and a blue cross over the other, two mouths of white teeth, and yellow drips from the top.
NNOTB #271
A mask with a crown of white spikes, a white ring eye and a red X eye, a mouth of white teeth in a red box, on brown with orange bars.
NNOTB #273
A robot mask on lavender drawn in a few lines, a red X in a black ring for one eye, a red bar for the other, a box of white and red bars for a mouth, and thin legs below it like a stand. Forty-one recorded strokes. Set beside the purple crowned mask from August, it is the same arrangement with the scribble taken out: the X, the box and the grille, and nothing else.
Compare with #236, in this room
NNOTB #274
A blue mask with two crowned eyes, one a ring and one a box, a wide mouth of white teeth in a red frame, and bars of red and orange at the sides.
NNOTB #278
A profile in pink line on slate, facing right, with a red spiral eye at the left, a cross in a ring at the right, a mouth of white teeth, and a cigarette drawn in white line with smoke at its tip. Blue hair in zigzag runs along the top. Fifty-four strokes. It is the one mask in the room that smokes.
NNOTB #279
A dense mask with a red target eye and a dark eye, a mouth of yellow teeth in a pink box, a flower at the lower right, on orange and red bars.
NNOTB #280
A white oval mask on black, filled with fine colored scribble, with two ringed eyes, a dark nose, a small mouth and a red ear at the right.
NNOTB #285
A winged figure with a yellow head and two red X eyes spreads black wings over a ground of brown, yellow and purple, a yellow bar across the bottom.
NNOTB #291
A profile in brown with a beam coming in from the left to a ringed eye, a grille of white teeth, and green and pink line over the face, on brown.
October 15
Four weeks after the last mask, three works on one day close the collection.
NNOTB #1 fork
The first drawing in the collection, drawn again. A crowd of heads and raised limbs on cyan, with teeth at every size and a hand with spread fingers, as in December 2021. The colors are the same. The lines are looser and the figures larger, with a pink face at the center and a dark figure at the upper right. A small round badge sits at the lower left, and the title says fork. It was drawn on October 15, 2022, the first of the three that day.
NNOTB #300
A skull mask in the dark with a glowing yellow eye and a beam coming in from the left, its mouth a grille of white teeth, blue bars along the top like a crown, and coils of green and purple at the sides. Number three hundred, drawn two hours after the fork. The light is the summer's light, from the beam room in May, falling on the summer's mask.
NNOTB #0000
The collection piece, an edition of one, drawn last on October 15, 2022, four hours after the fork. A purple skull in profile with a red X for an eye and a row of white teeth, under a crown of orange and red bars, with a yellow sun grinning at the upper right. Green bars stand at the left and yellow ones at the right. Everything the collection drew is in it: the crown, the X, the grille, the sun, the beads, the scribble. Nothing else in the room took as many strokes: 448.
Compare with #1 fork, in this roomClosing
The fork of the first drawing and #0000 hang side by side at the end. One is the collection's first idea, redrawn. The other is everything the collection learned in ten months, packed into a single skull. Between them is the whole of New Nifty on the Block.