VIENNA.- Forty years after Drawing Now, the legendary exhibition mounted jointly with the MoMA in New York, 2015 will see the Albertina once again attempt to take stock of what drawing means or can mean today. In the present showing, selected works by 36 international artists and artist groups turn the spotlight on relevant movements of the past ten years.

Drawing has long since outgrown its traditional place on paper. Its lines now extend onto walls, onto ceilings, and into three-dimensional spaces, while also coming to life in animated video works. And it has also incorporated entirely new “drawing materials” ranging from tape to wire to transport straps. And yet in the wake of genre boundaries’ dissolution, the art of drawing continues to produce magnificent statements in its traditional forms: the quickly dashed off sketch, the watercolour, or the painstakingly done, painting-like work.

Drawing Now: 2015 illustrates the broad spectrum of present-day tendencies of drawing in art: the range of works featured here runs from the small-scale to the monumental and from sketches to complex notations and detailed, true-to-life depictions. And it also includes large-scale projects planned in great detail. In terms of content, the artists devote their works to private experiences recorded in spontaneous diary entries, simple everyday observations, quirky stories, and political events. Their works reflect upon the medium of drawing itself as an objectified process and consider the time-intensive nature of its execution. The artists examine the conditions and possibilities associated with the production of these works while also addressing the themes of appropriated drawing and drawing as a performative or collaborative act.

Several works were created specially for this exhibition, and others involve the artists working on location. Wall drawings come from Constantin Luser and Dan Perjovschi, Lotte Lyon reacts to the spatial conditions with an elaborate ceiling work, and a spectacular spatial drawings has been planned specifically for Drawing Now: 2015 by Monika Grzymala. Additionally, Nikolaus Gansterer is presenting a newly developed drawing performance on two dates during this exhibition’s run.

This presentation also sees the façade of the Albertina become a three-dimensional drawing board: artist Rainer Prohaska stretches orange belts around the architectural complex in which the Albertina is housed in order to effect the graphical interconnection of the building’s various elements. Prohaska thus articulates an expansion of the notion of drawing in a manner that is particularly emphatic: his work Drawing an Orange Line shows that drawing is no longer limited to paper, but can also conquer walls and rooms, architecture and the cityscape.

Drawing Now: 2015 takes up the theme of an exhibition that was shown at the Albertina back in 1977 in cooperation with the MoMa in New York. Drawing now ¬– Zeichnung heute made it possible to experience an overview of contemporary drawing and its relevant styles from an American perspective. The current presentation pursues a similar concern, introducing protagonists for whom drawing is a central interest and who have had a particularly strong influence on drawing over the past ten years. The focus is on artists born during the 1960s and 1970s, although other artists who have struck out in new directions during the past ten years are also represented.

Drawing Now: 2015 is an exhibition that does more than just dovetail with one of the Albertina’s core competencies. It also challenges this competency and, what’s more, challenges the museum as a whole to never stand still, always remaining open to the experimental and to that sort of adventure that can only result from discovery of the unknown and hitherto unseen.

The Albertina plans to continue Drawing Now as a series, to be shown at irregular intervals with various emphases.

Participating artists: Tomma Abts | Silvia Bächli | Anna Barriball | Marc Bauer | Michaël Borremans | Andrea Bowers | Olga Chernysheva | Amy Cutler | Tacita Dean | Sonja Gangl | Nikolaus Gansterer | Monika Grzymala | Toba Khedoori | Los Carpinteros | Constantin Luser | Lotte Lyon | Julie Mehretu | Aleksandra Mir | Muntean/Rosenblum | Paul Noble | Jockum Nordström | Micha Payer + Martin Gabriel | Fritz Panzer | Dan Perjovschi | Chloe Piene | Rainer Prohaska | Robin Rhode | Mithu Sen | David Shrigley | Paul Sietsema | Tatiana Trouvé | Ignacio Uriarte | Marcel van Eeden | Erik van Lieshout | Sandra Vásquez de la Horra | Jorinde Voigt

Curator: Elsy Lahner