Friday, February 11, 2011

On Line: Drawing through the Twentieth Century

In what can arguably be described as vibrant, On Line: Drawing through the Twentieth Century provides an extensive survey at the transformation of drawing from 1910 through 2010. This periodic timeline intelligibly displays drawings technical transition from a formal mode of academic exploration, to its procedural development into spatial abstraction. The exhibition thus invites the audience to consider an increasingly global communicative advancement; a universal language that is as auditory as is visually expressive. The eclectic works on display range from the explorative studies of Kandinsky’s watercolour drawings (1925), to Agnes Martin’s sensually grid work The Tree (1964) to Anthony McCall’s effortless Five minute Drawing (1975), to Ranjani Shetter’s cosmically ambitious installation Just a Bit More (2005). Inspiring does certainly encapsulate the evolution of drawing as once a tool for academic development, to a mode of personal exploration.

Additionally, On Line inherently presents the technological innovations that served as the catalyst for drawings abstract and political progression. Sculptures, digital media, and even performance art creatively reflect the development between existentialism and drawing such as the exquisite simplicity of Rodchenko’s Spatial Construction no. 12 (1920). Even the banality of Krasinki’s illogical blue installation (1970), to the unintelligible Schneeman video installation Up to and Including Her Limits (1973-1976), affords a perceptive outlook into the procreation of media and drawing.

Although a historically poignant exhibition, On Line futilely categorises the works in an attempt to “label and identify”- as one would do with insect specimens. Nonetheless an incisively coherent survey of line’s conventional and creative duality.

1 comment:

  1. My editing will be organized from the beginning of the writing to the end, not by type of comment or correction.

    The review seems to be written in a confusing manner on purpose due to sentence structure and word choices. The word "to" is not needed before "2010". The third sentence is too complex. There are two ideas in this one sentence. The first idea is what is in the show. The second idea is what the pieces do. To make the ideas easily understood put each idea in its own sentence. I, personally, do not agree with the this description of the work - "institutionalized ancestry to its robust shift towards aestheticism", but everyone is entitled to an opinion. Also in the third sentence - there should be a dash between "twenty" and "first".

    The fourth sentence is awkward. It is a chronological list of works, then a statement about the works. I would put the statement first, then list the works, so we know why we are reading a list, then sandwich it with another relevant statement. There should be a dash between "Five" and "minute". "Minute" and "drawing" should be capitalized. "Bit" and "more" should be capitalized. The work "indeed", just before "inspiring", is not needed.

    The second word of the second paragraph is part of a title, so it should be italicized. The first sentence of the second paragraph is confusing. The confusion begins at the dash after the word "technology". I think it should read like this:

    "... technology, an unconventional medium that reflects the progressive attitudes undertaken by artists of the twentieth century."

    I am not sure what the word "divisibly" means in the next sentence - many different mediums?

    The last paragraph contains two criticisms of the show. First, the title and second, the show's attempt to categorize so many pieces. I would leave the first criticism out and save your words for the second criticism, as it is more interesting.

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