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Map any Western history of art (rather than, say, a history of Western art) and you’ll soon see a pattern.
There’s a tendency, if not even a necessity, to define the visual through representation. Somehow, what’s
within a field of view is always already becoming a thing: whether this means mapping Greek gods onto the
stars, or defining the shadows Plato’s puppets throw on the cave wall, the simplest and most persistent
approach to understanding art is by anchoring the seen to the thing.

Perhaps it’s this tendency which makes Ted Lawson’s works so sophisticated and sublime. While his
materials list …