As usual with the Drawing Center's twice-a-year exhibitions for
emerging artists, this one stretches drawing almost beyond recognition.
It includes traditional works like finely rendered, close views of
woven fabric by Stefanie Victor and smooth, much enlarged drawings of
human navels by Susan D'Amato. But a large cocoon like structure by
Monika Grzymala made of four miles of paper tape wrapped around three
columns in the gallery could be taken by an innocent viewer for
sculpture.
The
nominal unifying theme is line, drawing's most fundamental element, but
the broader imperative that gives the show its entertaining appeal is
the pursuit of novelty. This can be formal or technical, as in the
works of Adam Fowler, who made his medium-large drawings by carefully
cutting out the unmarked spaces between myriad penciled arcs to create
lacy, seemingly layered works of remarkable delicacy.
Judy
Stevens' colorful irregularly shaped wall hangings made of crocheted
yarn and Franklin Evan's, semi-abstract, neo-hippie mural don't look
unfamiliar, but the aspiration to formal and stylistic novelty is
palpable In their works, as well. So too for Molly Larkey's enlarged
graphite copies of handwritten letters exchanged between herself and
her father, though the epistolary contents add an emotional charge
missing from the rest of the exhibition.
Conceptual novelty is also in play. David Tallitsch's installation of a table bearing blocks of colored clay and chalk, with drawing exercises and art postcards pinned to the wall, slyly meditates on conventionalism in art. And an installation of officially notarized documents with zanily poetic, typewritten texts -supposedly the results of a collaboration between two artists, Cariana and Carianne, who inhabit the same body - puts a novel spin on ideas about identity and authorship.