As far as thought-provoking and challenging exercises in formalism and sub-minimalism go, they don’t come much more formalist or sub-minimalist than prolific cartoonist Sean Christensen’s 2019 self-published mini Performance Video, an admittedly curious contemporary artifact that’s as notable for what it does as what it is — although by the end, whether or not there’s any distinction between the two is very much an open question.

And, in fairness, open questions are rather at the core of what Christensen is getting at in this work, for which the antiquated term “avant-garde” is woefully inadequate. Christensen starts and ends with the most basic of basic linework that wordlessly refers either forward and backward to the text, respectively — but that text is the backbone of the project, blue-rendered hand lettering split, like the art, into six-panel grids on each page, with four lines of wording per panel being the standard…