Exclamations in the Night

Creating his card on the 22nd of August 2005, Roy Arenella carefully silhouettes a giant keystoning exclamation point on the back of his postal card. The exclamation point takes no ink itself; it is but the white that blocks our view of the black background. Visual works like this force us into a struggle between positive and negative space as we try to determine what part we should foreground and which part to let slip into the background.


Roy Arenella, "!" (22 Aug 2005)
On the front of the card, Roy let's us know that this is card # "157 USPC" (where "USPC," I suppose, means "United States postal card," but I could be wrong). And he explains himself thus: "Re: Some recent blog entries." So I know he is congratulating me on a few blog entries from just before August 22nd. The use of a small fleur de lis rubberstamping and of a 20-cent "Louisiana World Exposition" stamp affixed to the face of the three-cent postal card (to ensure that it bears sufficient postage for the hour-long trip to me) tells me he has my postings from New Orleans (from just before Hurricane Katrina) in mind.

un violon d'ingres