“Graphica” Exhibition

Foxy Production

[Image: "Graphica" 2020, installation view, Foxy Production, New York. Photo: Charles Benton.]

This event has ended.

The exhibition’s title comes from painter Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy’s philosophical and instructional Latin poem “De Arte Graphica” (1668), in which the author promotes the then novel idea that painters and sculptors are artists, rather than craftspeople. He argues that visual producers hold the same creative and inspirational status as poets and playwrights. He also prescribes the ingredients of a great painting, in terms of subject matter, composition, color, and style, looking back to the balanced, pared-down, classical art of ancient Greece and Rome, as an antidote to then contemporary Baroque painting.

The evolution of the meaning of the Latin word “graphica”—of painting or drawing—into the English “graphic,” later saw the word’s meaning revert to the artisanal once more, to a sense of visual illustration and design. In recent years a number of contemporary artists have reclaimed the use of graphic forms and patterning in work that resonates with social and personal significance. With inspiration from cartoons, illustration, and digital design, among other sources, their work negotiates with 20th century traditions, including Constructivism, Pop, and Minimalism.