Nominal Variables XXXI

This is a continuation of Michael DeSutter’s Counting Bars series. Created from vintage Fortune magazines the artist inherited from his grandfather, the work references growth in multiple ways. While DeSutter thought there was nothing left to explore with the series, each time he sat with the materials it felt like a conversation with his grandfather, driving him to see things in a new way. The artist simply was not ready for this conversation to be over just yet. In the artists own words:

“Inspired by my late grandfather’s fascination with charting market growth and the numerous bar graphs that fill the pages of 18 years (1954-1972) worth of Fortune magazines he left me, I deconstructed the bar graph while conducting an inward exploration around my own desire to chart growth, personal growth.

‘Counting Bars’ - the title itself a nod to my grandfather’s love of music, finds me looking at my personal growth over the past four decades, from rural middle-American to east coaster, and now west coaster, questioning what my relationship with my grandfather might be like if he were alive today.

This body of work is created entirely from the pages of Fortune magazines my grandfather left me.”