Jerry's Map

Curated by Alison Amick

Jerry’s Map features selections from the map of an imaginary world that Michigan-based artist Jerry Gretzinger began 56 years ago. This vast project, which started as one doodle, now consists of around 3,600 individual 8 x 10 panels conjoined to make a single large-scale map filled with cities, countryside, rivers, airports and more facilities representing everyday life in this other dimension. Gretzinger paints and collages pieces of the map based on randomly-generated instructions drawn from a special deck of cards. Rules like "VOID" and "SCAN," examples of what appears on the cards, dictate Gretzinger's every brushstroke. 

Image: Jerry Gretzinger, Jerry’s Map: Section Gviii, 1963–2017. Mixed media including inkjet print, collage, acrylic, marker and ink, Collection of the artist