“Spirit Level: Open Sessions 14” Exhibition

The Drawing Center

[Image: Sharon Madanes "Natural Light Humanizes" (2017) Oil and acrylic on canvas, 54 x 60 in.]

This event has ended.

Spirit Level: Open Sessions 14 will explore materials that bear witness to suspended states common to “waiting” in relationship to the practice of drawing. The exhibition gathers components that characterize the waiting room—of a doctor’s office, the Department of Motor Vehicle, or a bus depot, for example—where strangers assemble in varying degrees of temporary stasis. The waiting room at The Drawing Center will serve as a space for drawing and rituals that will guide visitors through a variety of life’s transitions. The visible elements in the exhibition are a stage for a performance or an activity in the making. Here the collective voice of Open Sessions’ artists sets in motion an absurd play, incorporating the behaviors (norms and otherwise) of waiting in a designated space. Diagrams, charts, blueprints, drawings, videos, and schematics will explore the passage from one place to another; the transformation of line to form; and the metaphysical shift to some place unknown. This exhibition features the work of Mike Crane, Kunlin He, Victoria Keddie, Lux Lindner, Sharon Madanes, and Guadalupe Maravilla.

Spirit Level is one of five exhibitions organized by Rosario Güiraldes and Lisa Sigal, Open Sessions Curators, together with participating artists. Conceived and organized over fourteen months, The Lab or the Drawing Room exhibitions present experimental work and ideas, and take the form of thematic group shows. In the second year of the cycle, Open Sessions curators organize a full-museum exhibition to which all Open Sessions artists contribute work that best manifests and/or expands what drawing is.