AC: I’ve been thinking about form lately, but mainly about anti-form. 

JN: Yeah, what about that Jackie Winsor, you love that work too.

AC: It always blows my mind that you teach with Jackie Winsor.

JN: I’ll call her right now. She’s in Newfoundland, I bet she would be interested. 

AC: Her work reminds me of that thing you are always saying das Fingerspitzengefühl?

JN: Yes. Das Fingerspitzengefühl, the fingertip feeling.

AC: It gives me the want of that because it is so open.

JN: Fingerspitzengefühl is actual tactility but also implies an intuition, an emotional sensation where fingertip feeling is metaphoric as well.

AC: It is like an itch that is coming. You know (because you introduced us) Eva’s work is like that. It is so perfect but then it moves and it reveals its imperfections. I love it; it drives her crazy. It is like the anti-form is itching to be the perfect form and vice-versa.

JN: As you know from my Instagram I like pairings. 

AC: I know BUT I think we need to look at this in another way.

JN: Is this other way about introducing a painter? You have a painting bias.

AC: I do not have a painting bias. No paintings this time! I have been thinking about Nari Ward’s work from way back when I interviewed him. His is its own anti-form. This Tumble Hood is a performative object. I wish that all of our phone conversations about art could become shows. 

JN: Is it pretentious to do an anti-form show with a German title at a German named gallery?

AC: Klaus is the anti-form of the pretention of German named galleries. We’ll call it The Finger Show at Klaus.

JN: It sounds lewd, but I expect that from you. 

AC: It makes perfect sense. Prurience is the soul of wit. 

JN: I think you mean brevity.

AC: I really want to re-watch that piece Klaus: The Musical by Ryan McNamara.  

JN: What is that?

AC: It is a genesis gallery story from the old days (2004) before you even visited Brooklyn. 

JN: You realize that your anti-form definition is a bit floating in time! Anti-form emerged when I came on the scene in the early 1970s…it is related to post-minimalism and process art. The art emerges from qualities innate in the material and the processes themselves.  

AC: This is why I like talking to you. You remind me to look where I didn’t even think to look. C’mon. Anti-form. Let me have a bit of lexical fun. All three artists deal with form, with primary or localized color and they all interrogate traditional formats of what an artwork is. They all give us that itchy intuitive feeling.