Untitled (JA 65), Berlin

Best-known for his sculptures that typically include colored neon light, Antonakos also created a large body of works on paper. His early drawings were primarily studies for sculpture but from the 1970s on he has been making independent works. In 1980, during a six-month stay in Berlin, Antonakos concentrated on drawing, experimenting with a wide variety of materials and techniques. The present work, done during this period, combines paper cuts and collage. Having cut out a series of squares from a sheet of white paper, Antonakos then glued onto the sheet, slightly overlapping the holes, squares cut from another sheet of paper of a different tone of white. The result is a white on white, geometric composition in which the surface is animated by the shadows of the squares and the subtle tonal differences between the papers.