NEW YORK, NY.- Where Do We Stand? Two Years of Drawing with Open Sessions is the second whole-group exhibition of the Open Sessions program. The exhibition gives the museum over to an exploration of contemporary drawing that encompasses video, sculpture, photography, and installation, as well as traditional drawing forms. Where Do We Stand? places drawing at the center of conversation around temporary, jerry-rigged, and heterogeneous urban spaces from Houston to Paris to Vietnam. It looks at the potential of ruin and rebuilding in the desert, the suburbs and the city, and considers both saturation and secrecy in relation to images, language, and architecture.

Rodrigo Valenzuela’s photographs of building materials—which appear to be ruined interiors or the epic aftermath of an earthquake—alter the perception of scale; Eric Ramos Guerrero’s graphite and ink drawings of nightmarish scenes of hooded figures occupying dystopian landscapes are derived from his youth in San Diego near the Tijuana border. Other artists in the exhibition use modest materials to tease out drawing forms, like Thessia Machado’s motorized tools for performing drawing and sound compositions in a vitrine. Subversive content is addressed by HongAn Truong whose video and photography work captures a unique perspective of the war in Vietnam.

Open Sessions artists participating in Where Do We Stand?: Regina Agu, ruby onyinyechi amanze, Daniel Bejar, Danielle Dean, Mustafa Faruki, Eric Ramos Guerrero, Sheree Hovsepian, Sue Jeong Ka, Olalekan Jeyifous, Rafael Kelman, Arnold Kemp, Nsenga Knight, Florentine and Alexandre Lamarche-Ovize, Carolyn Lambert, Lei Lei, jc lenochan, Thessia Machado, Srinivas Mangipudi, James Mercer, Irini Miga, Ana Penalba, Sreshta Rit Premnath, Jennifer May Reiland, Gabriela Salazar, Slinko, Sun Moqing, Edwin Torres, Hong-An Truong, Tuguldur Yondonjamts, Rodrigo Valenzuela, Ezra Wube, Sara Chang Yan

Open Sessions is a hybrid exhibition/residency program created by Lisa Sigal and Nova Benway, Open Sessions Curators. It provides unique opportunities for selected artists to contextualize their work through exhibitions, public programs, workshops, and working dinners. The artists selected for Open Sessions may or may not draw as their primary means of art-making. The two-year program engages musicians, architects, dancers, poets—anyone who is interested in expanding the boundaries of drawing. Open Sessions artists work together to create a dynamic, continuous conversation, viewing drawing as an activity rather than a product.