CHICAGO.- The Smart Museum of Art presents the exhibit Drawing as Process in Contemporary Art through January 14, 2007. Since at least the Renaissance, drawing has been a familiar part of the creative process in Western art. Traditionally, printmakers, painters, and sculptors might dash off sketches to practice technique, keep notebooks as a way to gather and organize ideas, or draft formal renderings. Today, the styles, materials, and forms of art have expanded, and drawing has become a vital and self-sufficient art form. However, artists continue to use drawing to brainstorm and experiment, to explore ideas, and to propose, hone, circulate, and chronicle their works in other media. Sketches and formal compositions still inform the practices of painting and sculpture, and now artists might also draw layouts for installation art, storyboards for performances, or instructions that are acted out by viewers. Organized as a series of case studies of artists with connections to the Smart Museum’s collections and commissions, this exhibition offers a rich opportunity for a behind-the-scenes look at the working process of some of today’s leading artists: Mark Dion, Julia Fish, Carol Jackson, Kerry James Marshall, Richard Rezac, Erwin Wurm, and Zhang Huan.

The exhibit has been curated by Stephanie Smith, Smart Museum Director of Collections and Exhibitions and Curator of Contemporary Art.

This exhibition and related programs are supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support for related programs is provided by the Division of Humanities and the Department of Visual Arts, University of Chicago, and by Critical Inquiry.