Press Release: Twice Drawn

Modern and Contemporary Drawings Featured in New Tang Exhibition

Recent explorations of the medium of drawing will be the focus of Twice Drawn, a two-part exhibition of modern and contemporary drawings to be presented at the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery from March 11-June 4 and Oct. 7-Dec. 30, 2006. Taken together, the two independent but related exhibitions will afford a rare opportunity to look at drawings in two richly different viewing contexts.

“Seeing the artworks in one setting, then seeing them again, differently arranged, greatly affects our viewing and influences our understandings of these drawings,” said Tang curator Ian Berry, who organized Twice Drawn with artist and independent curator Jack Shear. Taking the selection of distinctive drawings as their primary organizing principle, the curators came up with what Berry called “an eccentric survey of the last half-century of modern and contemporary drawing,” an exhibition that will freely juxtapose important drawings made by artists young and old, male and female, working in different times and styles.

The first exhibition of Twice Drawn opens to the public Saturday, March 11. It will showcase 92 exemplary drawings — two each from 46 artists — formally arranged on gallery walls in traditional “masterpiece” style. The artists will range from 20th-century stalwarts such as Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol to emerging artists such as Ernesto Caivano and Kelly McLane. In some cases, an artist's two drawings will represent two strikingly distinct phases of his career, such as Philip Guston's 1953 abstract expressionist work and his cartoonish landscape from 1975. In other instances, two works will be chosen from a series. James Esber's Lincoln #7 and Lincoln #8, for example, were selected from a 2003 series that offers playful visual variations on Abraham Lincoln's craggy visage.

Some pieces, like Andy Warhol's hand-drawn Dollar Bill (1965), may come as surprises, originating from artists not primarily known for their drawing. Drawings by painter Johns and sculptor Donald Judd function both as sketches of larger works and as compelling compositions in their own right. The various genres and styles on view will embrace portraits, abstracts, and landscapes as well as surreal, mythic, and narrative scenes.

The second version of Twice Drawn, opening Oct. 7, will carry over a selection of works from the first exhibition, augmented with new works from as many as 40 additional artists. This time, the artworks will be arranged salon-style in thematically related groups; a single Esber portrait of Lincoln on view in the second exhibition might appear among five or six portraits displayed as a group.

Public events in connection with the exhibition will include the College's annual Malloy Visiting Artist Lecture, to be delivered by renowned abstract artist Brice Marden at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 22, in Gannett Auditorium. On Thursday, March 30, a curator's tour begins at noon, followed by a panel discussion with Tang curator Ian Berry and artists from the exhibition at 6 p.m., and a reception with the artists at 7:30 p.m.

PDF: Twice Drawn Twice_Drawn_PR.pdf