Frottage

Frottage at Miguel Abreu Gallery in New York. "...In many ways, frottage seems the most passé thing. Its focus on the action of the hand, its close alliance with pencil and paper and its interest in rubbing and touching all make it look a touch dated. Who does it anymore? Who really did it ever?
That said, there are a number of qualities particular to frottage that make it of interest: its indexicality, its taint of memory, the way it translates a thing into an image (like a rudimentary photocopier). Perhaps frottage’s association with texture and tactility seems outmoded because, contrary to the smooth world of surfaces and signs that has become our natural habitat, it searches out cracks and fissures and imperfections. In this way it sheds light on overlooked interstices in our environment, even if it only offers them up again as artifacts and relics."