Thought drawings

Thought Drawings and Philosophical Sketches are prominent typologies in the world of Sands’ practice. While maybe better known for his body-based performance works – which, I suppose, are all PERFORMALIST SELF-PORTRAITS in one way or another – Sands also has a long-standing mark-making practice that is apparent in his stacks and rolls and Albert Heijn bags and now archival boxes full of drawings and sketches on A4 paper and drawing paper and backs of drawing pads and specialty papers and rolls of paper and sometimes even a textile (though the TEXTILE PAINTINGS remain their own separate typology). The Working 2000 grouping has around 350 sketches; the Rolled Paintings probably around 150 (though we only ever catalogued 20); the Computer Drawings around 58; and the Working 2010s, well, we’re not sure as we had to stop at around 65 but it’s likely closer to 200. Then there’s the horse drawings – thousands of them – which we never got to, but which live through the META-ARCHIVE PROCESS IMAGES and across social media. It’s a lot to take in, trust me, I know. And that’s part of it. A single drawing or sketch might be interesting or funny or compositionally seductive but taken in their accumulation – and sometimes in their repetition – they become something else. They form densely woven theoretical tracts unfolding in painterly space.

The sketches are layered, messy, chaotic and often, as Sands says, “irritatingly large” for what they are. They mischievously confuse the terms of what we understand value to be. The drawings are singular statements, sometimes coming in a pair that sits in Marx’s chiasmus, sometimes tracking herstories, sometimes examining truisms and falsehoods, and always connected to LABOR. All are ‘language as figuration,’ breaking apart wrought boundaries between the acting body and thinking body, the gestures of the hand and of the brain, the feeling and the language, the sex and the cerebral. Or, perhaps better put, they make such boundaries fluid. All open onto a lovingly idiosyncratic world-making systems, as Amalia described: ‘gay gay gay’ as a world structure and a stuttering prophetic chant. IS THIS GOOD FOR ANUS?

When no one else was looking, the drawings and sketches became what Radna coined a ‘DITZCOURSE’ of their own. – MH.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 01778-2014-PsW2010s-ARestlessIntelligence
  • Title
  • A Restless Intelligence
  • Dimensions
  • 50 x 65
  • Materials
  • Pencil, permanent marker and acrylic paint on paper
  • Object Location
  • Physical

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  • Catalog No.
  • 02158-1995/1998-TwLd-ISaid
  • Title
  • I said
  • Dimensions
  • 29.5 x 21
  • Materials
  • Scented marker on A4 stationary
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

Like the horse drawings, the letterhead drawings are not always on letterhead, but share amongst them use of the handwritten text.

  • Reflection Notes

“I printed this stationary to use for my business, but never really used it for that. I used it to start making drawings on. My Mom had sent me fruit scented markers with animals printed on them, which I had used in my childhood. I used these to make the drawings, declarative statements to find my way.” – SMW.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 02167-1995/1998-TwLd-IAm
  • Title
  • I am
  • Dimensions
  • 29.5 x 21
  • Materials
  • Scented marker on A4 stationary
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

Like the horse drawings, the letterhead drawings are not always on letterhead, but share amongst them use of the handwritten text.

  • Reflection Notes

“I printed this stationary to use for my business, but never really used it for that. I used it to start making drawings on. My Mom had sent me fruit scented markers with animals printed on them, which I had used in my childhood. I used these to make the drawings, declarative statements to find my way.” – SMW.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 02330-c2015-TwA4-ThingsAndPeople
  • Title
  • Things and people
  • Dimensions
  • 29.5 x 21
  • Materials
  • Acrylic paint on pages of Gai Pied magazine
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

The pages are yellowed and cracked with age. Dutch Curator Erik Hagoort gave SMW a few huge boxes of these French gay liberation magazines from the 80s, and SMW intuitively started painting on them. There are many more than those listed in the archive.

  • Reflection Notes

“I had to throw away a lot of these, there were also Dutch gay liberation magazines in the boxes Erik Hagoort gave me, called ‘De Verkeerde Krant’ or so, (‘van de verkeerde kant’ was a Dutch saying for a queer person) but due to storage I could not keep everything as a resource to use. There are hundreds of these painted drawings, and they get quite a good response. Paul Thek = newspaper paintings, Karen Finley = same as Paul Thek, Erik Hagoort is the partner of Dutch artist Albert van Westing and AA Bronson showed a fondness for the drawings.” – SMW.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 01466-2015-PsW2010s-WasThatIntentional?
  • Title
  • Was That Intentional?
  • Dimensions
  • 43 x 60
  • Materials
  • Acrylic paint and gouache on exhibition poster
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

Verso: exhibition poster from ‘Does Not Equal’ at W139 (design by Karoline Swiezynski). SMW work in the exhibition: Carolee Schneemann Methodology: My Body for Women/ Paintings With the Sound of Their Own Making/Carolee Schneemann as a Painter/Dedicated to Robin Wassink-Murray + Miss Lady Betsie Bubble + WASSINQUE INC. Our Little Feminist Unit.

  • Reflection Notes

“It was such an uncomfortable experience. It was 9 o’clock in the morning and no one wanted to be photographed. The photographer started crying.” – SMW.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 00267-c2001-PsW2000-LOSTIT.
  • Title
  • LOST IT
  • Dimensions
  • 42 x 59
  • Materials
  • Poster marker and pen on paper
  • Object Location
  • Physical

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  • Catalog No.
  • 00401-2000-PsW2000-DONTLOOK
  • Title
  • DON'T LOOK
  • Dimensions
  • 42 x 59
  • Materials
  • Poster marker on paper
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Reflection Notes

“All this archiving… I think it is also a form of self-care.” – SMW.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 00445-2000/2001-TwHd-AmIUsingFeminism?
  • Title
  • Am I Using Feminism?
  • Dimensions
  • 42 x 59
  • Materials
  • Poster marker and pen on paper
  • Object Location
  • Physical

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  • Catalog No.
  • 00008-2011-TwRp-DisadvantageIsAnIntellectual…
  • Title
  • Disadvantage is an Intellectual Position
  • Dimensions
  • 150 x 69
  • Materials
  • Acrylic on paper
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

In response to the Linda Nochlin 1971 essay ‘Why are there no great women artists’.

  • Reflection Notes

Email exchange – 22.09.20. “I am in such an art world bubble sometimes, even feminist art world bubble, that it is still fairly new and challenging to answer questions about my positioning in the general society at large in a materialist feminist sense.” – SMW.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 02122-c2014-TwCd-AsCloseAs
  • Title
  • As Close As
  • Dimensions
  • Variable
  • Materials
  • Digital word document file
  • Object Location
  • Digital
  • Technical Notes

Some of the computer drawings have been printed and other have not. All could be printed at any scale in any material upon request.

  • Reflection Notes

“An elegant and typically strange solution for making work, which I was very proud of. I just type in a word document and print on cheap A4 printer paper. ‘Pure text, message as image’.” – SMW.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 02152-1995/1998-TwLd-BestInBed
  • Title
  • Best in bed
  • Dimensions
  • 29.5 x 21
  • Materials
  • Spacented marker on A4 stationary
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

Like the horse drawings, the letterhead drawings are not always on letterhead, but share amongst them use of the handwritten text.

  • Reflection Notes

“I printed this stationary to use for my business, but never really used it for that. I used it to start making drawings on. My Mom had sent me fruit scented markers with animals printed on them, which I had used in my childhood. I used these to make the drawings, declarative statements to find my way.” – SMW.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 02247-c2015-TwA4-ArchiveArchiveArchive
  • Title
  • Archive Archive Archive
  • Dimensions
  • 29.5 x 21
  • Materials
  • Acrylic paint on pages of Gai Pied magazine
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

The pages are yellowed and cracked with age. Dutch Curator Erik Hagoort gave SMW a few huge boxes of these French gay liberation magazines from the 80s, and SMW intuitively started painting on them. There are many more than those listed in the archive.

  • Reflection Notes

“I had to throw away a lot of these, there were also Dutch gay liberation magazines in the boxes Erik Hagoort gave me, called ‘De Verkeerde Krant’ or so, (‘van de verkeerde kant’ was a Dutch saying for a queer person) but due to storage I could not keep everything as a resource to use. There are hundreds of these painted drawings, and they get quite a good response. Paul Thek = newspaper paintings, Karen Finley = same as Paul Thek, Erik Hagoort is the partner of Dutch artist Albert van Westing and AA Bronson showed a fondness for the drawings.” – SMW.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 02217-c2015-TwA4-AboutTheGesture
  • Title
  • About the gesture
  • Dimensions
  • 29.5 x 21
  • Materials
  • Acrylic paint on pages of Gai Pied magazine
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

The pages are yellowed and cracked with age. Dutch Curator Erik Hagoort gave SMW a few huge boxes of these French gay liberation magazines from the 80s, and SMW intuitively started painting on them. There are many more than those listed in the archive.

  • Reflection Notes

“I had to throw away a lot of these, there were also Dutch gay liberation magazines in the boxes Erik Hagoort gave me, called ‘De Verkeerde Krant’ or so, (‘van de verkeerde kant’ was a Dutch saying for a queer person) but due to storage I could not keep everything as a resource to use. There are hundreds of these painted drawings, and they get quite a good response. Paul Thek = newspaper paintings, Karen Finley = same as Paul Thek, Erik Hagoort is the partner of Dutch artist Albert van Westing and AA Bronson showed a fondness for the drawings.” – SMW.

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Listings connecting to the keyword “Thought drawings” (623)

Image of Studio object

  • Catalog No.
  • 02127-c2014-TwCd-Unseemly
  • Title
  • Unseemly
  • Dimensions
  • Variable
  • Materials
  • Digital word document file
  • Object Location
  • Digital
  • Technical Notes

Some of the computer drawings have been printed and other have not. All could be printed at any scale in any material upon request.

  • Reflection Notes

“An elegant and typically strange solution for making work, which I was very proud of. I just type in a word document and print on cheap A4 printer paper. ‘Pure text, message as image’.” – SMW.

Close

Image of Studio object

  • Catalog No.
  • 02160-1995/1998-TwLd-ThankGod(Blue)
  • Title
  • Thank God (Blue)
  • Dimensions
  • 29.5 x 21
  • Materials
  • Scented marker on A4 stationary
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

Like the horse drawings, the letterhead drawings are not always on letterhead, but share amongst them use of the handwritten text.

  • Reflection Notes

“I printed this stationary to use for my business, but never really used it for that. I used it to start making drawings on. My Mom had sent me fruit scented markers with animals printed on them, which I had used in my childhood. I used these to make the drawings, declarative statements to find my way.” – SMW.

Close

Image of Studio object

  • Catalog No.
  • 02192-1995/1998-TwLd-MyLifeIsASearch(Orange)
  • Title
  • My life is a search (orange)
  • Dimensions
  • 29.5 x 21
  • Materials
  • Scented marker on A4 stationary
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

Like the horse drawings, the letterhead drawings are not always on letterhead, but share amongst them use of the handwritten text.

  • Reflection Notes

“I printed this stationary to use for my business, but never really used it for that. I used it to start making drawings on. My Mom had sent me fruit scented markers with animals printed on them, which I had used in my childhood. I used these to make the drawings, declarative statements to find my way.” – SMW.

Close

Image of Studio object

  • Catalog No.
  • 02224-c2015-TwA4-ItsMyFault
  • Title
  • It's my fault
  • Dimensions
  • 29.5 x 21
  • Materials
  • Acrylic paint on pages of Gai Pied magazine
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

The pages are yellowed and cracked with age. Dutch Curator Erik Hagoort gave SMW a few huge boxes of these French gay liberation magazines from the 80s, and SMW intuitively started painting on them. There are many more than those listed in the archive.

  • Reflection Notes

“I had to throw away a lot of these, there were also Dutch gay liberation magazines in the boxes Erik Hagoort gave me, called ‘De Verkeerde Krant’ or so, (‘van de verkeerde kant’ was a Dutch saying for a queer person) but due to storage I could not keep everything as a resource to use. There are hundreds of these painted drawings, and they get quite a good response. Paul Thek = newspaper paintings, Karen Finley = same as Paul Thek, Erik Hagoort is the partner of Dutch artist Albert van Westing and AA Bronson showed a fondness for the drawings.” – SMW.

Close

Image of Studio object

  • Catalog No.
  • 02256-c2015-TwA4-AboutNotBeingMe
  • Title
  • About not being me
  • Dimensions
  • 29.5 x 21
  • Materials
  • Acrylic paint on pages of Gai Pied magazine
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

The pages are yellowed and cracked with age. Dutch Curator Erik Hagoort gave SMW a few huge boxes of these French gay liberation magazines from the 80s, and SMW intuitively started painting on them. There are many more than those listed in the archive.

  • Reflection Notes

“I had to throw away a lot of these, there were also Dutch gay liberation magazines in the boxes Erik Hagoort gave me, called ‘De Verkeerde Krant’ or so, (‘van de verkeerde kant’ was a Dutch saying for a queer person) but due to storage I could not keep everything as a resource to use. There are hundreds of these painted drawings, and they get quite a good response. Paul Thek = newspaper paintings, Karen Finley = same as Paul Thek, Erik Hagoort is the partner of Dutch artist Albert van Westing and AA Bronson showed a fondness for the drawings.” – SMW.

Close

Image of Studio object

  • Catalog No.
  • 02288-c2015-TwA4-SillyMe
  • Title
  • Silly Me
  • Dimensions
  • 29.5 x 21
  • Materials
  • Acrylic paint on pages of Gai Pied magazine
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

The pages are yellowed and cracked with age. Dutch Curator Erik Hagoort gave SMW a few huge boxes of these French gay liberation magazines from the 80s, and SMW intuitively started painting on them. There are many more than those listed in the archive.

  • Reflection Notes

“I had to throw away a lot of these, there were also Dutch gay liberation magazines in the boxes Erik Hagoort gave me, called ‘De Verkeerde Krant’ or so, (‘van de verkeerde kant’ was a Dutch saying for a queer person) but due to storage I could not keep everything as a resource to use. There are hundreds of these painted drawings, and they get quite a good response. Paul Thek = newspaper paintings, Karen Finley = same as Paul Thek, Erik Hagoort is the partner of Dutch artist Albert van Westing and AA Bronson showed a fondness for the drawings.” – SMW.

Close

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  • Catalog No.
  • 02320-c2015-TwA4-ImUsuallyWrong
  • Title
  • I'm usually wrong
  • Dimensions
  • 29.5 x 21
  • Materials
  • Acrylic paint on pages of Gai Pied magazine
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

The pages are yellowed and cracked with age. Dutch Curator Erik Hagoort gave SMW a few huge boxes of these French gay liberation magazines from the 80s, and SMW intuitively started painting on them. There are many more than those listed in the archive.

  • Reflection Notes

“I had to throw away a lot of these, there were also Dutch gay liberation magazines in the boxes Erik Hagoort gave me, called ‘De Verkeerde Krant’ or so, (‘van de verkeerde kant’ was a Dutch saying for a queer person) but due to storage I could not keep everything as a resource to use. There are hundreds of these painted drawings, and they get quite a good response. Paul Thek = newspaper paintings, Karen Finley = same as Paul Thek, Erik Hagoort is the partner of Dutch artist Albert van Westing and AA Bronson showed a fondness for the drawings.” – SMW.

Close

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  • Catalog No.
  • 00007-c2009-TwRp-SadAndDeep
  • Title
  • Sad and Deep
  • Dimensions
  • 150 x 79
  • Materials
  • Acrylic on paper
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

Early rolled paintings always text with a frame/edge.

  • Reflection Notes

Rijksakademie Internal Open Studios – 07.09.20. “Our archiving is sharing, it’s like opening up a heart.” – SMW.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 00210-2000-PsW2000-InternalOctopus
  • Title
  • Internal Octopus
  • Dimensions
  • 42 x 59
  • Materials
  • Pen and poster marker on paper
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Reflection Notes

“I think I draw penises not as an obsession, but to get rid of them.” – SMW.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 00245-c2001-PsW2000-homosexualmen(lowercasep…
  • Title
  • homosexual men (Lowercase Portrait)
  • Dimensions
  • 42 x 59
  • Materials
  • Poster marker on paper
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Reflection Notes

“Affirmation of identity. 10 pieces of paper as affirmation, I don’t think that takes up too much space.” – SMW.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 00277-2001-PsW2000-ORALANDANAL
  • Title
  • ORAL AND ANAL
  • Dimensions
  • 42 x 59
  • Materials
  • Poster marker on paper
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Technical Notes

19:15 at night. 14th March, Wednesday. De Ruijterkade 128, 2nd Floor (first studio address outside of school).

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  • Catalog No.
  • 00309-c2001-PsW2000-NOBLOCKEDSEXUALENERGY
  • Title
  • NO BLOCKED SEXUAL ENERGY
  • Dimensions
  • 42 x 59
  • Materials
  • Poster marker and permanent marker on paper
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Reflection Notes

SMW and AC inventorying session [date unknown]. “Sometimes when I pass people on the street who are angry or tense… I think, they need a good f.” – AC. “When I said to Carolee my most important problems were sex and shit… I just realised last night that that means life and death.” – SMW. “An embodied infinite.” – AC. “In a very earthly way.” – SMW.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 00341-2000-PsW2000-TIMEBASEDART
  • Title
  • TIME BASED ART
  • Dimensions
  • 42 x 59
  • Materials
  • Poster marker on paper
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Reflection Notes

Rijksakademie Internal Open Studios – 07.09.20. “A crossover.” – SMW. “Career overlaps across time… an art network chronology.” – AC. “Archiving as becoming a story.” – Anon. “The relational quality of the space, it’s unpredictable.” – AC. “Archival revenge as a method to reclaiming feminine/masculine [and non-binary] symbologies. – AC and Anon.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 00373-2002-PsW2000-Smart
  • Title
  • Smart
  • Dimensions
  • 39 x 52.5
  • Materials
  • Poster marker, marker, tissue paper and glue on paper
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Reflection Notes

GSA meeting (unknown date). “It feels very much like world-building.” – AC.

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  • Catalog No.
  • 00405-2001-TwHd-UpToSpeed
  • Title
  • Up To Speed
  • Dimensions
  • 42 x 59
  • Materials
  • Poster marker, pen and coffee on paper
  • Object Location
  • Physical
  • Reflection Notes

Rijksakademie Internal Open Studios – 07.09.20. “… artists over 70s with storages all over the world. Their children are worried, they don’t even know what’s in there. This is really a problem with artists’ families.” – Anon. “We [artists] have no saying, it’s up to them. Now I have a core group of people that will take care of them [my art pieces].” – SMW.

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