Untitled (Magic Box Calendar)
© George Widener
Using dates of Saturdays as an artistic medium, George Widener places them within the format of a magic square—a matrix in which every column, row and diagonal add up to the same number. His magic squares are often thematic. They may be calendric portraits with dates from a person’s life or reveal numeric connections between dates of events, likes major storms, wars and lunar tides. Widener also uses magic squares to simply explore the computational possibilities of relationships between calendar dates over stretches of time. The constant of this particular magic square is 34. Widener goes beyond the basic matrix formula to also include this constant in the sum of the four quadrants, as well as the sum of the middle four numbers. In mathematical terms, this image is known as a “gnomon magic square.” Dates within Widener’s magic squares include those from both the past and the future: “I wondered if I could create a pattern of [dates of] disasters or of weather, and start predicting. Because if everything adds up, and there is one [date] missing, and a future date fits in … does that mean there will be storms? I got fascinated with that." -Social Geographies, 2014
Exhibition Title: Social Geographies
Label Date: 2014
Type: Wall label
Written by: Museum staff
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