Alexandre Kyungu Mwilambwe, The Scar of the Earth II, 2022 (detail), incision on rubber (car tire inner tube), 69 3/4 x 47 1/4 x 3/4 in/177 x 120 x 2 cm
What is it about the grid that makes it irresistible to artists? The most obvious answer is that it undergirds everything central to the human enterprise: maps, cities, agriculture, textiles, architecture, databases, computer code, industry, scientific knowledge and much else. It directs, prescribes, organizes, orders and assigns value. Small wonder, then, that the grid, the very emblem of modernity, has long been a vehicle for artists seeking to disrupt the status quo.
