Diorama, 1979

Akin to a diorama, the work recalls a luminous device that brings the vision of a painting into perspective. Four canvases, alternatively arranged from the recto and the verso and in order of increasing size – the first in a straight position, the other three in a tilted position – appear to be contained in a light beam or cone of vision drawn in red pencil, in part on the canvas, and in part on the wall. The light beam's vertex is in the optical system represented in the torn reproduction pinned to the first canvas to the left. In addition to including the expanding lines of the cone of vision, the tilted canvases each feature a collage: on the second canvas, the corner of an overturned canvas simulates a reversal of the vertex touched by the continuation of the drawing; the third canvas features a crumpled copy of the image of the optical device; the fourth, a small overturned canvas of the same size as the first one holds down the fragments of that same reproduction.