NEW YORK, NY.- Energy Scaffolds and Information Architecture is the first solo museum exhibition for Louise Despont, an artist best known for using compasses, stencils, and rulers to create intricate and deeply meditative drawings on ledger paper. For Energy Scaffolds and Information Architecture, The Drawing Center has commissioned a new site-specific architectural installation and several series of large-scale drawings that have been influenced by Despont’s recent relocation to Bali.

The first architectural enclosure on view, entitled Pure Potential, consists of a wooden façade covered by wooden dowels that create a textured and protective surface. For Despont, the series of eight Pure Potential drawings represent the transition of energy from formlessness into form. The second architectural space, which is oval in shape, holds a monumental frieze drawing that is sixty feet in length, six feet in height, and composed of seven panels. The drawing depicts the relationship between a material form and a subtle body—the independent entity that manifests through the physical self.

As part of the installation, Despont invited conceptual artist Aaron Taylor Kuffner to present his gamelatron, an original instrument created by Kuffner that is a robotic variant of the gamelan, the traditional Balinese and Javanese orchestra that includes vibraphones, drums, chimes, bells, and gongs.

Concurrently in the Drawing Room gallery, Jennifer Bartlett: Hospital is the first museum exhibition of this new series of ten pastels made in 2012. The works are based on a series of photographs that Bartlett took during an extended stay at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and which she later cropped and edited in her studio. Bartlett has included pastels in other large-scale serial works like In The Garden (1980) and Air: 24 Hours (1991–92). As well, pastels have acted as a sort of travelogue for Bartlett, with various series referencing places she has lived in or traveled to, including: Cape Cod, Bermuda, Aspen, Iceland, Mayeaux, Sun Valley, Amagansett, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.

With Hospital, Bartlett continues her long-established practice of close observation and responsiveness to her environment, but this time turns her attention to interior spaces and window views rather than landscapes, gardens, and atmospheric conditions. The drawings mine the liminal experience of "hospital time," long periods of waiting interspersed with highly organized routines of treatment, medication, and physical therapy. Both exhibits are curated by Brett Littman, Executive Director.