In The Making
Contemporary Drawings from a Private Collection

February 1 - May 16, 2003
In The Making

The University Museum of Contemporary Art is pleased to present In the Making: Contemporary Drawings from a Private Collection, an exhibition of drawings by 25 artists engaged in explorations of different processes and materials. The drawings are from one of the most significant collections of contemporary drawings in the United States, which has been assembled by a New York collector over the last four decades. In the Making: Contemporary Drawings from a Private Collection will open on Friday, January 31 with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Gallery, and will be on view through March 14 and from March 25 through May 16, 2003. The exhibition includes works by Eve Aschheim, Jill Baroff, Suzanne Bocanegra, Marco Breuer, Brad Brown, Russell Crotty, Elena del Rivero, Emma Dewing, Teresita Fernandez, Christian Garnett, Christine Hiebert, Jim Hodges, Mary Ijichi, Linda Lynch, Karen Margolis, Linda Matalon, Cyrilla Mozenter, James Nares, Deborah Gottheil Nehmad, Laurie Reid, Karin Sander, Cary Smith, Sara Sosnowy, Tam van Tran, and Joseph Zito

In the Making
Linda Lynch, Walking Line, 1996,
graphite and sumi ink on paper, 66 x 105 inches
In the Making includes the work of conceptual and installation artists, painters and sculptors and artists whose primary medium is drawing. What unites them is their favoring of approaches that emphasize process and material or that challenge conventional notions of drawing. Among the 40 works in the exhibition are several that incorporate materials not usually associated with drawing. Cyrilla Mozenter's Preserve I, 1990, is a vertical drawing made of twenty-nine balls of string coated in beeswax and strung from a cord stretching from floor to ceiling. Its title reflects Mozenter's fascination with the ordinary stuff of life -- strings, peanuts, used soap -- and her sensitivity to their utility, singular beauty, and complex associations. Conceptual artist Karin Sander works in many different mediums and formats, creating series that give material form to singular ideas. Her drawings Lint Pick Up -- Ina and Lint Pick Up -- Karin, both from 1999, were created using Lint Pick Up tape to immortalize detritus left behind by acquaintances.

Marco Breuer produces photographic works by the simplest of means, usually without a camera. Manually or with power tools he burns, sands, scratches, and strikes photographic papers whose emulsions respond variously to different forms of energy. For both drawings titled Study for One Ten, 2000, the artist briefly connected two live 110-volt wires over the paper, creating sparks and carbon stains that through controlled chance produced elegant organic forms and colors -- brown, yellow, green -- and hints of texture and depth

Each of the drawings in the exhibition investigates two fundamental material aspects of drawing, mark-making and the drawing surface. All the artists make their own distinctive mark, regardless of whether they use gesture or line. Several of the participating artists use line, but all to strikingly different effect. Christine Hiebert's charcoal drawing is remarkable for its scale and its varied and energetic marks. She prepares the paper by stretching it with water and applying several coats of rabbit skin glue. Hiebert builds her drawing deliberately and slowly, marking and erasing and marking again. Her drawings express a sophisticated and highly personal relationship to the physical, spatial environment.

Selected drawings from this private collection have been exhibited widely, here and in Europe. The collection was the subject of two major exhibitions and catalogues: Drawing is another kind of language organized by the Harvard Art Museums in 1997 and Drawings of Choice from a New York Collection organized by the Krannert Art Museum and the Arkansas Art Center, which is currently on tour. A brochure documenting In the Making: Contemporary Drawings from a Private Collection will be available at the University Museum of Contemporary Art in June.

The University Museum of Contemporary Art, located on the lower level of the Fine Arts Center, is open to the public Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. The Gallery is also open just before and during evening performances held in the Concert Hall of the Fine Arts Center. For more information, please call the Gallery at (413) 545-3670.