100,000 Lines: Hermann Zschiegner

I was left overwhelmed by The New York Times front page this Memorial Day weekend. We can’t comprehend this much sorrow, says Teju Cole, and I agree. I felt an immediate urge to draw on the paper. Not as an act of erasure, but to give scale to the incalculable loss. A single random line for each person lost. 100,000 ballpoint pen marks on paper.

–From Hermann Zschiegner’s Instagram (@hermann2n) posted in the evening of May 24, 2020.

Published in conjunction with 100,000 Lines, a public exhibition of work by Hermann Zschiegner that was viewable from the street from July 9th to August 6th, 2020. Curated by Victor Sira.

Deploying a custom algorithm, Zschiegner used a pen plotter—a kind of computer-operated drawing device—to create an abstract form of 100,000 lines in order to attempt to visualize the enormity of the loss from COVID-19, as well as our inability to comprehend it.

Publisher: dieFirma/bdp, New York, 2020
2 Pages 21 x 15” B&W/Color, NewsPrint
Printed In New York City First Edition (1000)