Drawing Now - Signs of the time
Curated by Elsy Lahner, the 36 mostly international participants of the exhibition "Drawing Now" at Viennese museum Albertina display 130 works with an expanded notion of drawing, some of monumental dimensions relating to the surrounding physical space – as installations, as reflections on their own materiality, self-reflections and hybrids with sculpture.
In our exhibition portrait the curator leads through the different expressions the medium drawing found in the last two decades and she provides us an insight into the works she has chosen to visualize the changes of drawing. Drawing is very much alive without any insecurities about being an anachronism, and now more than ever it seems to be the preferred format of the younger generation, as an immediate, spontaneous and direct creation, independent of the fascination of technology. Many artists explore its boundaries and since long ago it cannot simply be interpreted as an artistic discipline. İt is almost an attitude, an experiment and the attempt to explain social phenomena and historical developments. Sometimes drawing appears drowned in scribblings or blurred, as a cognitive landscape between caricature and diagram, between repulsion and demystifıcation, yet its capacity for synthesis always seems to provide a peculiar reflection of the times. Strong messages for times of crises.
The participating artists are Tomma Abts, Silvia Bächli, Anna Barriball, Marc Bauer, Michaël Borremans, Andrea Bowers, Olga Chernysheva, Amy Cutler, Tacita Dean, Sonja Gangl, Nikolaus Gansterer, Monika Grzymala, Toba Khedoori, Los Carpinteros, Constantin Luser, Lotte Lyon, Julie Mehretu, Aleksandra Mir, Muntean/Rosenblum, Paul Noble, Jockum Nordström, Micha Payer + Martin Gabriel, Fritz Panzer, Dan Perjovschi, Chloe Piene, Rainer Prohaska, Robin Rhode, Mithu Sen, David Shrigley, Paul Sietsema, Tatiana Trouvé, Ignacio Uriarte, Marcel van Eeden, Erik van Lieshout, Sandra Vásquez de la Horra and Jorinde Voigt. The show is on display until October 11th 2015. (written by Cem Angeli)