Michael Tedja: The Color Guide Series and More

A masterclass in ordered chaos from the Dutch artist famed for his epic drawing series

This survey delves into the work of the leading Dutch artist Michael Tedja (born 1971), paying special attention to his drawing series. The book features reproductions of his prodigious installation Hypersubjective, which comprises 134 large-scale drawings snugly hung on the gallery’s walls, surrounding visitors on all sides. As the title indicates, the volume also includes Tedja’s The Color Guide Series, which consists of 280 vibrantly colored works on uniform sheets of paper, ordered in a grid formation. Tedja layers the sheets with textured paint, crayon and chalk, forming fey, almost childlike shapes. These works vary considerably and elude easy categorization, falling somewhere between figurative and abstract. When viewed as a whole, the concise structure of the grid contrasts starkly with the cacophony of color and movement.