| Maker(s): | Wiley, William T.
| | Culture: | American (1937 - )
| | Title: | Where Do You Put the Emphasis
| | Date Made: | 1971
| | Type: | Drawing
| | Materials: | Watercolor and ink on cream-colored paper
| | Place Made: | United States
| | Measurements: | sheet: 7 in x 10 7/8 in; 17.8 cm x 27.6 cm
| | Narrative Inscription: | inscription in image, signature and date at lower right: where do you put the emphasis? providing there is such a thing / W.M.T. Wiley 1971
| | Accession Number: | SC 2012.1.21
| | Credit Line: | Gift of The Pokross Art Collection, donated in accordance with the wishes of Muriel Kohn Pokross, class of 1934 by her children, Joan Pokross Curhan, class of 1959, William R. Pokross and David R. Pokross Jr. in loving memory of their parents, Muriel Kohn Pokross, class of 1934 and David R. Pokross
| | Museum Collection: | Smith College Museum of Art
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Label Text:
Associated with the West Coast Funk Art scene, the irreverent and whimsical anti-establishment art movement that blossomed at the University of California, Davis in the 1960s, William T. Wiley is something of a cult hero among artists. His sculptures, paintings, watercolors and performance art works combine Zen philosophy, political commentary, satire, visual and verbal puns and quirky personal symbolism.
Wiley began working in watercolor in 1968, after a six month artist’s block. Small and delicate, and eminently out of fashion in the contemporary art world, watercolor allowed Wiley to work in a personal, searching, off-beat manner. His watercolors, like his sculptures, are assemblages of sorts, contrasting exquisitely rendered drawings, often of an assortment of curiously grouped objects, with hand-written text. Influenced by Zen koans, statements of questions that resist linear thought, Wiley produced images and texts that blur the line between wisdom and whimsy.
Where Do You Put the Emphasis depicts a series of blue circles against a craggy background that resembles desert topography. The text reads: “Where do you put the emphasis? Providing there is such a thing.” The reference to “emphasis” suggests punctuation, but visually the circles evoke marbles or billiard balls more than periods, games of strategy, and chance.
The circle motif can be found elsewhere in Wiley’s work during 1971. In Random Remarks and Digs (pictured here), he conceived of the circles as atoms and molecules visible to the naked eye. Additional writing on this object can be found at
Paper + People the Cunningham Center Blog.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+2012.1.21 |
