a river without banks expanded drawing December 5-14
This exhibition catalogue documents a river without banks: expanded drawing, an exhibition held at The Hold Artspace. a river without banks was curated by Kylie Spear and featured works by Tom Brooks, Christopher Handran, Charlie Hillhouse, Luke Kidd, Carly Scoufos and Tachika Yokota. The exhibition opened on 5 December 2013 and continued until 14 December. Front cover Charlie Hillhouse Untitled, 2013 Over page Tachika Yokota Lost in the everyday #4, 2013 Next page Luke Kidd Feedback, (video still) 2013 Luke Kidd & Kylie Spear 0414 441 922 www.theholdartspace.com info@theholdartspace.com Level 2, 274 Montague Road West End Q 4101
We value [drawings] for their immediacy, for the insights they offer into processes of the creative act, for their fragmemtary, incomplete nature, their intimacy and directness; in drawing we seek truth, not power. - Christian Rattemeyer¹ This page: Tom Brooks I prefer the Pacific over the Atlantic, (detail) 2013 Next page: Christopher Handran Driveby Obscura, 2013
prelude by Kylie Spear, curator A river without banks was an exhibition seeking to extend traditional definitions of drawing. Throughout the works in the exhibition, there was very little reference to physically drawn lines; in fact, there were no instances where pencil hit paper. This was a deliberate method to bring the focus of the exhibition to the conceptual potential of drawing. The title of this exhibition references a painting by Marc Chagall titled Time is a river without banks (1930-1939). I felt this title articulated my personal conception of the line; an entity of uninhibited movement and limitless potential to extend ad infinitum through time and space. A river without banks did not attempt to make any definitive statements about the role of drawing in contemporary practice. Instead, I approached this exhibition as a vehicle to facilitate further conversation about the medium, with each work providing a question to be considered. Carly Scoufos Inverse III, 2013
The space between thoughts an excerpt, Kylie Spear 2012 The drawn line is a dynamic tool that enables both visual and conceptual connections. The line simultaneously unites and divides, and provides a portal between the physical and the philosophical. It evidences and inscribes the movements of a body in a specific time and space, and maintains a uniquely intimate proximity to both its creator and audience. Its primal and unmediated qualities transcend traditional media and can be applied to broad, contemporary notions of drawing. Traditional drawing requires few tools, most of which are readily accessible, as well as minimal space and time, allowing the artist to sketch freely and swiftly on a variety of surfaces. They embrace errors and imperfections, layers of drawing and re-drawing, which enable a unique sense of self-reflexivity². The definitions of the medium have broadened particularly over the last century to encompass far more than just pencil and paper. Tom Brooks Untitled, (video still) 2013
Tachika Yokota Lost in the everyday #4, 2013
[D]rawing is part of our interrelation to our physical environment, recording on it and in it the presence of the human. It is the means by which we can understand and map, decipher and come back to terms with our surroundings as we leave marks, tracks or shadows to mark our passing.... Drawing is part of what it means to be human... - Emma Dexter³ Charlie Hillhouse Untitled, 2013
This page: Luke Kidd Division, 2013 Next page: Tachika Yokota Lost in the everyday #2, 2013
During the course of the twentieth century numerous artists and theorists conducted explorations into the semiotic and phenomenological implications of the line⁴. During the 1920s the theories of Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee were instrumental in the autonomous expansion of drawing. They stated that the basic constituents of a drawing, namely the point and line, could be manipulated to express and embody any phenomena either interior or external to us, be it through two-dimensional, performative, spatial or aural means⁵. Because of these theories, the line experienced a shift in function from that of a delineator of form to a dynamic point within three-dimensional space⁶. The realisation that line was directly connected to time and space allowed drawing to transgress its traditional flat surface and move into the third dimension. In the 1960s and 1970s, various minimalist and conceptualist movements, such as land art, body art, performance, process art and art povera initiated a dematerialisation of the art object⁷. Influenced by the writings of Robert Morris, drawing became increasingly hybridised with other mediums as hierarchies between art forms ruptured and multiple mediums began to be combined within single artworks⁸. These occurrences enabled the expansion of drawing, which can now be defined as linear artworks that engage with gesture (be it physical or conceptual gestures), spatiality and temporality. This page: Tom Brooks Mirror Robe (Couchy Creek), (video still) 2013 Next page: Carly Scoufos Directing a Line (Summer Landscape), (video still) 2013
I have come to define expanded drawings as works that use nontraditional tools and techniques that engage with conceptual possibilities of point and line. I believe expanded drawings not only retained the honest and transparent qualities of conventional drawings, but form new dialogues with the medium. They are able to engage with gesture and temporality in ways that conventional drawings cannot facilitate. Drawings inherently inscribe their own temporality, as they preserve the gesture of the body in a certain time and place through linear residue. The traces left behind evidence and locate the action of the body within a specific moment that is unique unto itself⁹. According to Kandinsky and Butler, drawing is essentially a measure of time, which is witnessed when a point gains momentum and becomes a line¹⁰. This movement traditionally involves the physical exertion from the body wielding a drawing implement upon a given surface. However this dynamism also exists within expanded drawings, as a line by definition cannot manifest without motion. Even conceptual drawings require a mental progression between two theoretical points, just as audio drawings involve the indiscernible physical vibration of sound waves. This Page: Luke Kidd Feedback, 2013 Next Page: Christopher Handran Driveby Obscura, (detail) 2013
An active line on a walk, moving freely, without goal. A walk for a walk s sake. The mobility agent is a point, shifting its position forward. - Paul Klee¹¹ Tom Brooks Untitled, (video still) 2013
¹ ² ³ ⁴ ⁵ Rattemeyer, C 2013, 'Drawing today' in Vitamin D2: new perspectives in drawing, Phaidon Press, New York, p. 8. Morrow, C 2009, 'I walk the line', in I walk the line: new Australian drawing, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, pp. 2-9. Dexter, E 2005, Vitamin D: new perspectives in drawing, Phaidon Press, New York. Zegher, C 2010, 'A century under the sign of line: drawing and its extension (1910-2010)', in D Frankel (ed.), On line: drawing through the twentieth century, Museum of Modern Art, New York, pp. 22-26, 39-40, 68, 103-104. Kandinsky, W 1979, Point and line to plane, Dover publications, New York. Klee, P 1968, Pedagogical sketchbook, Faber and Faber, London. ⁶ Morrow, C 2009, 'I walk the line', in I walk the line: new Australian drawing, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, p. 2. Zegher, C 2010, 'A century under the sign of line: drawing and its extension (1910-2010)', in D Frankel (ed.), On line: drawing through the twentieth century, Museum of Modern Art, New York, pp. 25-26, 39-40. ⁷ Dexter, E 2005, Vitamin D: new perspectives in drawing, Phaidon Press, New York, pp. 6-7. Zegher, C 2010, 'A century under the sign of line: drawing and its extension (1910-2010)', in D Frankel (ed.), On line: drawing through the twentieth century, Museum of Modern Art, New York, p. 103. ⁸ Butler, C 2010, Walkaround time: drawing and dance in the twentieth century, in D Frankel (ed.), On line: drawing through the twentieth century, Museum of Modern Art, New York, pp. 173-174. Hoptman, L 2002, Drawing now: eight propositions, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, p. 11. Zegher, C 2010, 'A century under the sign of line: drawing and its extension (1910-2010)', in D Frankel (ed.), On line: drawing through the twentieth century, Museum of Modern Art, New York, p. 68. ⁹ Berger, J 2008, 'Drawn to that moment', in J Savage (ed.), Berger on drawing, 3rd edn, Occasional Press, Cork, Ireland, pp. 67, 70. Lee, P 1999, 'Some kinds of duration: the temporality of drawing as process art', in S Emerson (ed.), Afterimage: drawing through process, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, pp. 27, 31. ¹⁰ Butler, C 1999, 'Ends and means', in S Emerson (ed.), Afterimage: drawing through process, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, p. 105. Kandinsky, W 1979, Point and line to plane, Dover publications, New York, p. 98. ¹¹ Klee, P 1968, Pedagogical sketchbook, Faber and Faber, London, p. 16. This page: Charlie Hillhouse Inverse I, 2013 Next page: Tom Brooks Untitled, (video still) 2013