York Art Gallery exhibition ‘Drawing Attention’ highlights emerging artists of all ages, artistic paths, and backgrounds.
Curator, Isabel Seligman, has presented the historic and contemporary collection of drawings from the British Museum with those at York Art Gallery to demonstrate “the expansive notion of drawing”.
The exhibition positions drawing as a finished medium not a work-in-progress sketch. The broad themes of the exhibition – self and other, alternate histories, and medium and materiality – create a diverse collection of pieces.
The curator positions pieces by well-known artists, from Édouard Manet to Andy Warhol, next to exhibition works, contextualising the themes and techniques of the emerging artists within the broad, established history of art.
This concept worked best with works like Catherine Anyango Grünewald’s graphite CCTV recreations positioned alongside Andy Warhol’s 1971 screenprint Electric Chair.
Together, the works explore themes of crime and punishment, addressing the role of the media in dealing with topics like these.
Another notable example is the portrayal of Sudarium Saint Veronica, created by Hans Burgkmair the Elder, positioned with Sin Wai Kin’s contemporary portraits from the Impressions collection.
We see a Biblical legend illustrated in traditional woodcut placed alongside the portraits of Drag performers, their makeup as if printed onto face wipes, fashioning a post-performance portrait.
The exhibition has many focuses, but the most striking is how it redefines our understanding of drawing, exploring the category with the traditional mediums – such as pencil and graphite – but also with newer mediums that we may never have categorised as drawing but nevertheless are.