Incognita, 1979

At the centre of a large primed canvas, set on an easel in the corner of the room, hangs a photographic canvas from a nylon thread, reproducing a view of the exterior side of the room for which the work was made. The perspectival drawing traced on the photograph instead features an interior view of the same room. At the centre of the photograph, in the area corresponding to the vanishing point of our gaze, a white rectangle made of card stock duplicates the image of the large primed canvas set on the easel and at the same time it constitutes the painting that escapes our gaze (the "unknown" alluded to in the title). The figure wearing a tail-coat outlined in a central position on the photographic canvas – a stand-in for the author – holds some photographs of the view of the space reproduced on the canvas itself. Strewn about on the floor, at the foot of the easel, are other photographs of the same subject.
The work was reformulated in a new version in 1980 (GPO-0438).