On the first sight, the series of charcoal drawings on paper, Untiled, 2017, appear like a photography in it's depiction of the dark frame and the finely drawn illumination. The drawings transport the image of a screen whose form and construction call up cinema as an illusion and desire machine; pictures of the apparatus projection, the techniques of perception that transport filigreed and simultaneously mechanical coolness and tactile-virtuoso devotion. His installational scenarios often recall a strange emptiness which could be applied to this series of drawings.
As with the world of cinema, in Vardag's œuvre methods and themes of recent art history flash up: the formal arsenal of site-specificity, Appropriation Art's techniques of repetition, although in no way can this be connected with the once-promised prospect of their critical potential, the disenchantment of the construction "art" and of the deceptive essence of its pictures. As elegant as they are opaque, as effective and obvious as they are unapproachable, the drawings remain studies in presence and absence.
