As an art form, drawing historically has played second fiddle to its jazzier, more colorful cousins -- painting, sculpture and installation work -- but the medium moves to center stage in a new exhibition opening this month at the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
"Drawings of Choice From a New York Collection," on view Sept. 4 through Nov. 3, features 100 contemporary works on paper by more than 40 artists. Big names, such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, will share space on the gallery walls along with emerging artists Jill Baroff, Cheryl Goldsleger, Mark Williams and others. The exhibition reflects all manner of contemporary drawing created from the 1960s through the present -- from casual sketches to more detailed, precisely rendered pictures, along with drawings intended to function primarily as preliminary studies.
A major strength of the collection, on loan from Werner Kramarsky and the Museum of Modern Art, is its works by minimalists such as Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold and Fred Sandback. Another strong suit of the collection is its drawings by conceptual artists; notable among them, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson and Lawrence Weiner. The show also includes drawings by artists better known for their work in areas outside the visual arts -- composer John Cage and choreographer and dancer Trisha Brown.
"Drawing has a long history as a practical as well as a theoretical tool in the artistic process," museum director Josef Helfenstein wrote in a catalog that accompanies the exhibition.
"Despite its relatively subordinate role over the centuries, drawing has to a certain degree always been an independent medium." Helfenstein, who curated the exhibition, said drawings "are still regarded as less important or sensational than a painting or an installation." But for Helfenstein, who said he shares Kramarsky's passion for drawings, it's the "intimacy and immediacy" of the medium that draws him to it. "Drawings are closer to the artist and the creative process," he said.
The exhibition and catalog are the results of a yearlong graduate seminar, taught by Helfenstein and Illinois art history professor Jonathan Fineberg. Nine students participated in the seminar and traveled to New York, where they met Kramarsky and viewed and researched the collection. Their work is reflected in the catalog text that accompanies images of the art featured in the exhibition.
Following the show's debut at Illinois, it will travel to four other art museums in 2002-03: Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Nov. 14-Feb. 2; Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, Feb. 11-March 23; Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, April 10-June 8; and Cincinnati Art Museum, Aug. 22-Nov. 16.
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