Page - 79 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 03/02

Review: ZeichenSetzung | 79www.jrfm.eu 2017, 3/2, 79–84 DOI: 10.25364/05.3:2017.2.7 Isabella Guanzini Book Review Monika Leisch-Kiesl: ZeichenSetzung / BildWahrnehmung Toba Khedoori: Gezeichnete Malerei Vienna: Verlag für Moderne Kunst 2016, 347 pages, ISBn: 978-3-903131-29-3 Marcel duchamp’s installation Sixteen Miles of String (1942) is the starting point for the aesthetic and philosophical analysis of marks, images and drawings by art historian and philosopher Monika Leisch-Kiesl, Professor of history and theory of art in Linz, in her new book, ZeichenSetzung / BildWahrnehmung.du- champ’s surrealistic work of art was constituted by 16 miles of ordinary white twine stretched from ceilings and crystal chandeliers, crisscrossing the canvases exhibited at the Whitelaw reid Mansion in Manhattan in 1942. Leisch-Kiesl em- phasizes above all the new visual configuration and the special perceptual situ- ation the thousands of sections of twine create, which involve both the artist and the viewer. this labyrinthine system of lines generates a new kind of space without beginning or end, in which no object is set up and the public is right in the middle. the lines trace thoughts and gestures at the same time, creating a drawing that is always becoming, opening new forms and movements in space. Leisch-Kiesl looks similarly at sophie taeuber-arp’s artworks, namely her series of small drawings entitled Movements de lignes (1939), in which the artist traced unspectacular lines to open up a conceptual space that evokes a new percep- tive experience. Both artists worked with lines and traces and created concep- tual drawings that disclose a particular spatial and temporal dimension of real- ity, which challenges the quality and possibilities of our vision. their works of art introduce the main topic of the book, which deals with image theory developed from the 1990s to the end of the 2010s specifically in the field of drawing (which is a key area of the author’s research).Leisch-Kiesl aims to explore the specific aesthetic and philosophical meaning of drawing through the large-scale compo- sitions of the australian artist of iraqi origin toba Khedoori, who has participated