The Limits of My Language 2 
oil on panel 
275 x 366 cm 
2002 
collection Gannett Inc

The Limits of My Language 3
oil on panel
275 x 366 cm
2002
collection Gannett Inc

Gannett Inc

In 2002 Tom Phillips was commissioned by interior design specialists Lehman-Smith + McLeish to produce three large panel paintings for the award winning Gannett/USA Today HQ building in Northern Virginia.

Wittgenstein's famous quotation "The Limits of My Language Are the Limits of My World", is deconstructed in the three paintings. The intensely colourful series begins as a word puzzle in the first canvas. The text becomes more fluid and calligraphic in the second and is overlaid with stencilled words. By the third, the text is wholly abstract. 

"Because Gannett was brand-new," says project-team head Debra Lehman-Smith, "we had an opportunity to tie in with the corporate philosophy from the very beginning." She also had the support of USA Today president and publisher Tom Curley, who says he was eager to avoid "art that's just part of a color scheme rather than capturing the organization's purpose." To mastermind the selection of artists, Lehman-Smith and partner James McLeish III brought in Art Sources consultant Lisa Austin. All five works eventually commissioned, says Austin, "fit conceptually with the media business. These installations are all about the relationship of text and art."

After determining which areas of the 880,000-square-foot Kohn Pedersen Fox complex were best suited to artistic additions, LSM contacted a handful of artists, recommending specific locations to think about in drafting proposals. "It was their genius that came up with the actual forms," Lehman-Smith says. Integrating those forms sometimes required LSM to rework lighting, structure, or mechanicals, so creative and technical discussions went back and forth. "In some places, the art complements the space," she continues. "In other places, the art is the space."

The other four artists whose work was commissioned are Ed Ruscha, Jaume Plensa, Joseph Kosuth and Lisa Albuquerque.

A monograph Inside the Gannett/USA Today Corporate Headquarters: Lehman-Smith + McLeish by Nancy Princenthal and Sarah Palmer was published by Edizioni Press in 2004