Contemporary Erotic Drawing
May 1 – August 7, 2005
Exhibition Opening Events: Sunday, May 1, 2005
Opening Reception: 4 to 6 pm
Panel Discussion: 3:30 pm
moderated by Harry Philbrick, Aldrich Director, with artists Mark Dean Veca, Danica Phelps, and Anita Steckel and curators Sara Kellner and Stuart Horodner
Round-trip transportation is available from NYC.
Call 203.48.4519 for information
The Aldrich Contemporary and DiverseWorks of Houston have co-organized Contemporary Erotic Drawing, an exhibition by thirty-four artists that encompasses the subject of sexuality and erotica. Exploring and defining what is erotic and titillating on their own terms, these artists display a diversity of sensibilities and approaches that range from the humorous, raunchy, and abstract, to fetishes, the personal, and intimate. The exhibition will tour nationally and be on view at The Aldrich from May 1 through August 7, 2005. This exhibition has been made possible, in part, by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
The immediacy and delicacy of drawing allows these artists to express preliminary and often raw ideas, allowing spontaneous imagery or thoughts to emerge. When combined with the subject of eroticism and human sexuality, this makes drawing the perfect site of investigation, as we continue to produce, display, and enjoy images of desire, whether openly or sequestered. Expanding and commenting on ancient traditions in both Western and Eastern art, artists in the exhibition offer works that are personal, political, beautiful, startling, reflective, and biographical. The artists, who work on paper, animate hand-drawn images, and utilize other nontraditional materials, are Stephen Andrews, Alice Attie, Joseph Biel, Ion Birch, Cecily Brown, Scott Burns, Jacqueline Cooper, R. Crumb, Simon English, Heyd Fontenot, Leon Golub, Juan Gomez, Tom Knechtel, Joan Linder, Cristina Lucas, Gina Magid, Georgia Marsh, Ruth Marten, Kim McCarty, Jean-Francois Moriceau + Petra Mrzyk, Tracy Nakayama, Chris Ofili, Danica Phelps, Chloe Piene, Paul Henry Ramirez, Huston Ripley, Anita Steckel, Scott Teplin, Lynne Woods Turner, Mark Dean Veca, Ruth Waldman, Su-en Wong, and Gang Zhao.
Contemporary Erotic Drawing has been organized by Harry Philbrick, director of The Aldrich; Sara Kellner, executive director of DiverseWorks; and independent curator Stuart Horodner. A fully-illustrated hard-cover catalogue, distributed by Distributed Art Publishers, will accompany the exhibition, with essays by noted author Wayne Koestenbaum (author of The Queen’s Throat; Cleavage: Essays on Sex, Stars, and Aesthetics; and the Penguin Lives’ Andy Warhol) and Art in America writer and Hans Bellmer scholar Sue Taylor.
Also on view at The Aldrich from May 1 through October 9, 2005, will be Memento Mori (My Glass is Run), an outdoor installation by Mark Dion; Mr. Softy, a site-specific outdoor installation by Orly Genger, who will perform on May 1 at 5pm during the exhibition opening reception; Liquid Ballistic, the fourth work in the Main Street Sculpture Project Series, by Roman de Salvo; and Grabstein fur RW, an installation by Pipilotti Rist.
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The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, located at 258 Main Street, Ridgefield, CT, is renowned as a national leader for its presentation of outstanding new art, cultivation of emerging artists, and innovation in museum education. Regular Museum hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 12 noon to 5 pm. For more information, please call 203.438.4519 or visit www.aldrichart.org.
