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11 Titles are an artistic equivalent to a poker players tell. They indicate intent even if the game plan is to divert or subvert the obvious. Joe uses titles in much the same way he is unabashed at taking quotes from the wide range of people whom he reads and admires reprinting his favorites in a number of catalogues that preceded this one. Titles similar to good quotes inform and direct. At their best theyre not fixed immutable points confined to a single reference. Not so in the titles of Zitos work from the mid to late 1980s that I showed in my gallery in 1987. The titles of the early wall sculptures are unadorned and without mystery. First Cut PositiveNegative and Male Female seem like exact fact-based descriptions of the minimalist exercise that defines the cast metal wall inserts of that period. Less than two years later the references become more personal and in some cases specifically salutary as in For Eva 1989 the first of many sculptures that involved casting three-dimensional geometric forms from a metal mold. Eva Hesse was very much on his mind then and continues to have a place of reverence in his constellation of artistic influences many of which happen to be women. The seminal Lippard catalogue on Hesse remains a dog-eared favorite nestled on an accessible bedroom bookshelf. In the same year he made a close sculptural first cousin over a seven-day period and appropriately titled Casting and Printing for 7 Days in September 1989. The piece is made of three specific components forming a trinity of materials a numerical variable that will appear again and again in Joes artwork. An integral part of the piece is a drawing framed and mounted to the wall of the genre already previously mentioned the burnt geometric images echoing the surrounding sculptural elements more installation than formal sculpture. Oil on paper is another technique that he employed during this period and beyond often dedicating these more intimate tactile moments of quiet hand to paper activity to the jazz musicians that he habitually listens to while he works Parker Gillespie and Max Roach to name a few. Starting in the 1990s the relative anonymity of his mathematically based shapes gives way to the more personal dialogue related directly to his body. Myself as of October 90 is composed of an extended rectangle reminiscent of an upright doorframe which derives its specific measurements from Joes height and width. A dense black box-like form weighing exactly 180 lbs. his weight at the time is placed on the floor cheek to jowl with its upright companion. This piece is self-portraiture distilled down to pure geometry devoid of emotion and shrouded in objectivity. In subsequent work his