Text by Rosalyn Deutsche

James Welling: Abstract was co-published by the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels and the Art Gallery of York University, Toronto on the occasion of the artist’s solo exhibition in 2002. The exhibition focused on the role of abstraction in Welling’s practice and featured a selection of works from ten series, including his well-known “Light Sources” (1992-2001), which incorporated a wide range of American and European subjects and marked the artist’s first use of digital technology. This exhibition catalogue includes an essay by noted art historian Rosalyn Deutsche. In the essay (translated into Dutch and French), Deutsche explores how Welling’s use of abstraction clouds the visual field and troubles the notion that vision is merely recognition.