Pastels on Newspaper

 McMahon was intrigued that the rectangular photograph’s subject was the forked shape of the line of waiting cars so he drew attention to that. Pictures in newspapers are chosen for their informational content and not their opticality. So he decided to mess with the verbal information by introducing nonverbal things like color, shape and texture. From late 1973 until he moved to NYC in September 1975 he did this work*. In New York the NY Times and with it other newspapers which had appeared to be objective in Cambridge now appeared as competing viewpoints** and not the rock I counted on in some peculiar way. Also the smallness and subtlety of his pastel work made it seem invisible to gallerists and he tried briefly to adjust the work to the NY audience, coloring in ‘tombstones’ in the financial pages. Sporadically in the next decades he would do a few more works, like the Jesus and Hanuman of the 80s and African Caligula of the 90s. In common with all of his different bodies of work McMahon is comfortable with doing new works.  * Most of this work was done in 1973-4 while a dorm parent at the Cambridge School in Weston, listening to Moondance by Van Morrison. Later McMahon would deliver mail to the house Van stayed at in Woodstock while recording Moondance. Dr. John, who was also on Paul’s mail route until Katrina said it best: “I was in the right place but it must have been the wrong time.”** NYT non-coverage of cable tv/Donald Manes