Walking into the Drawing
Gallery to see Vague Accent by Olga
Chernysheva (based in Moscow) one must enter a small room, hung with a series
of drawings made during Chernysheva’s month-long visit to New York City in November
2015. Hung at varying heights the sketches challenges viewers to see the pieces
clearly.
Each charcoal rendering
captures the ever-present New York moments which surround us. In Untitled [A Play…], looking across a
subway platform, a man is standing by a garbage can while two large piles of
trash in bags rest on carts nearby. Other than a figure using a cell phone this
scene could have taken place any time in the last hundred years. With quick
strokes, and gritty medium the artist captures the unpolished character of the
New York subway station.
Trains blur past in other
untitled works captioned, “…NY trains often change routes unpredictably. But
the conductors know the new plan.” The text, printed and pasted onto the paper
with intention, compliment the drawings without being overpowering.
By making her pieces more
difficult to see, Olga Chernysheva asks her viewer to focus on common scenes they
would otherwise pass - the grainy charcoal like an old memory of the first time
you saw the act unfold.
(REVISED)
 |
| Olga Chernysheva, Vague Accent, 2016, installation view, Drawing Center, New York. Photo: Martin Parsekian |
I like the way that you introduce and describe this exhibit."Hung at varying heights, a trail of sketches across the wall..." This sentence gives me the sense that childlike and energetic vibration of the gallery The only thing I would suggest is that in the last paragraph maybe you could elaborate more about the texture and the details of these sketches.For example, you can see how she depicts the scene by choosing special angles of her composition and the level of how much she smears the charcoal to render the tone of her works.
ReplyDeleteYou describe this show very well. I particularly like the first paragraph, though I would remove: "Entrance is a $5 fee at the reception desk." that sentence interrupts the flow of the words before and after it. I also that that your last sentence is very strong.
ReplyDelete