The montages I make are predetermined by grids that I draw based on geometrical abstract paintings, particularly from the 1920s or from the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s because these were the decades when the constructed photograph was a prominent feature of current art.

In his sci-fi novel "We" (1920-1), Yevgeny Zamyatin has his main character write "The line of the One State - it is a straight line. A great, divine, precise, wise, straight line - the wisest of lines". The overstatement is partly about the power of the straight line and partly a protest against it, I think.

Occasionally I deviate from the original idea of drawing grids from geometrical abstraction​. Some of the grids I've made come from W.E.B. Du Bois' amazing diagrams. 

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Although some geometric abstract paintings contain 
curves, my grids consist exclusively of straight lines so my choice is limited. I cut lines using a straight edge partly to emulate the analogue film editor who creates montages with a razor blade.

Martha Rosler's great photo-text work on the Bowery is organised in a grid as part of the critical modernist campaign against the aestheticisation of photography. My use of grids bridges the gap between the photographic document and the history of painting.