Category Archives: Drawing

Bani Abidi, Security Barriers A-Z (2009-19)

illustration of a road barrier

Ban Abidi, “Security Barriers A-Z” – type A – Iranian Embassy, Shahrah-e-Iran, Clifton, Karachi (CREDIT)

illustation of security barriers

Bani Abidi, Security Barriers A-Z (selection of M-Z; 2019) [CREDIT]

Bani Abidi, (1971-) in Karachi (PK), lives and works in Karachi and Delhi (IN)

“26 Inkjet Prints, 29.7 x 42.0cm

A design typology of security barriers found on the streets of Karachi (2009 – 2019). These barriers, which started making an entry into Karachi’s streets soon after the attack on the Twin Towers in NY in September 2001, raise questions around the notion of safety and economic segregation, state control and political strategies of demarcation. Out of context, against a white background, they resemble minimalist abstractions.” [credit]

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“Security Barriers A-L, 2008

The artist Bani Abidi is a nomad of two cultures. Born and brought up in Karachi, Pakistan, she lives and works today in Delhi, India. These biographical details run through her humorous works that depict the cultural and political differences and similarities between the two countries and their conflict-ridden border. In her work Security Barriers A-L, Abidi employs temporary architectural elements for an analysis of political manifestations of state violence, the maintenance of state power, and national strategies of demarcation.
In twelve prints, the artist catalogs the various models of security barriers in her hometown of Karachi, which she first photographed on-site, before going on to digitally rework them. She found the various constructions in front of embassies, consulates, at airports and intersections. Arranged in rows of three, the brightly colored, clear, and sharply contoured vector drawings against a white background are like objects featuring in a glossy catalog. One almost feels tempted to order one of these beautiful objects for the front yard, even though their design idiom is unambiguously that of a barrier. Only the attached titles establish the link to their original context and the related strategies of isolation and demarcation: type H stands out among the drawings with its all too vigorous expression of political superiority, while the flower-bedecked barrier in front of the British Deputy High Commission of the former colony almost seems smarmy. (KB) [credit]”
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“Bani Abidi’s early engagement with video, beginning at the Art Institute, led to the incorporation of performance and photography into her work. These mediums have provided Abidi with potent, sometimes subversive means to address problems of nationalism—specifically those surrounding the Indian-Pakistani conflict and the violent legacy of the 1947 partition dividing the two countries—and their uneven representation in the mass media. She is particularly interested in how these issues affect everyday life and individual experience.” (credit)

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“…It is the life of ordinary citizens that interests Abidi—not the heroic tale, but the poetry of the quotidian struggle for freedom of those who die laughing, or defiantly laugh in the face of death….

…

I want to make a strong point about the fact that my work is not about Pakistan. It’s about power, security, and militarised architecture; and it’s about the vulnerability of regular people.

We ought to be aware and assert the fact that such an identity-based reading of culture only happens when a work by a brown person is shown in a white space. A romance set in Paris is never perceived as being ‘about’ France, is it? What you see in my films is what I know and assume as my normative: the sounds, smells, landscape, and temperature . . . these are the details that help tell a story.

I am certainly not out to teach anyone anything about my country. My practice draws from a large spectrum of present and past experiences, and I hope to be able to speak to anyone who is interested in those ideas.

Of course, there are many layers in my work and its reading very much depends on the context in which it is placed….” (credit)

Mollie Rice, “Field Study, Parramatta Road” (2018)

drawings of abstract lines on the wall and curled up on a pedestal

“Mollie Rice explores human spatiality, and sensations of place, through an experimental drawing practice. Multiple visits to a particular site by the artist yield sound recordings, which are then translated into drawings in the studio, creating a complex connection between percpetion and place, action and experience. The works in this exhibition were created through a series of ten thousand step walks along Parramatta Road, starting from a place of significance to the artist and ending in a new location, which is then explored through processes of active listening and the physical record of drawing. ” (credit)

Mike Dax, Salt Drawing (2022)

(credit)

SALT from Michael Dax Iacovone on Vimeo.

“Artist Statement:

I like to think of drawing as a broad term, not limited to pencil on paper.  Drawing is a record and a representation.  It can be a record of what something looks like, or it can represent a location, or an action.  It can be a record of an event, or an idea, but it isn’t mistaken for any of these things, it is not a substitute.  I draw by moving through spaces based on systems.  The artifacts of these journeys are records of those drawings.

I create systems to experience spaces through movement and labor.  I make art by creating maps, drawings, photos, and videos that utilize the virtual understandings of space to create systems and formulas to actually experience those spaces.    Ideally, the presentation of the formulas and systems along with the visual manifestation of the work will influence the viewers into considering and possibly experiencing their own spaces differently…. but that’s a lot to ask. Maybe someone just wants to look at it, and I’m good with that.” (credit)

Bill Gilbert, Walk to Work (2009)

“For twenty-two years I have made the hour long drive from my house in Cerrillos to my office at the University of New Mexico. For this piece, I decided to walk to work. I strapped on a backpack, headed out my door and walked as straight a line as possible (given the variations in topography, land ownership, etc.) to my office at UNM. Along the roughly 50 mile trek across ranch land, the Sandia Mountains and the northeast quadrant of Albuquerque I recorded my perceptions from the perspective of a lone hiker walking across the land.

This work is part of a series of “Physiocartographies.” Started in 2003 in the field with the Land Arts of the American West mobile studio, the physiocartographies  series combines the abstraction of cartographic maps with the physical act of walking the surface of the planet to create portraits of place. In the various works from this series I follow prescribed paths across the landscape using a gps unit to navigate and record points, a camera to shoot images and a digital recorder to capture sounds. The final works appear as reconstructed maps, videos and installations.” (credit)

Diane Borsato, The China Town Foray (2008-10)

“The China Town Foray, Intervention and photographs, 2008 – 2010

I invited the Mycological Association of Toronto (an amateur mushroom hunting club) to go on a mycological foray in “Chinatown” or, the Chinese supermarkets and medicinal shops in Markham, Toronto. With field guides and magnifying glasses, we debated Latin species names and toured the suburban marketplace in the same manner that we would research and identify Ontario fungi in the forest or field.

Special thanks for the work and expertise of Alan Gan, and the participating members of the Mycological Society of Toronto.

The event took place in various locations in Markham, Toronto, in the summer of 2008. In 2010, the urban forage was repeated in New York City, with the collaboration of the New York Mycological Society. Special thanks to guest mycologists Paul Sadowski and Gary Lincoff.

EXHIBITION HISTORY

AGYU, Terrestrial / Celestial and Walking Studio, curated by Emelie Chhangur , Spring 2012, Toronto

Articule Gallery, Terrestrial/Celestial, Presented as part of Mois de la Photo, curated by Anne-Marie Ninacs, Fall 2011, Montreal, Canada

Umami Festival Performance, The New York Foray, Urban foraging events with the New York Mycological Society. Curated by Yael Raviv, Spring 2010, New York City

Mercer Union, The Chinatown Foray, Solo exhibition, main space, Fall 2009, Toronto” (credit)

Lygia Pape, Divisor (Divider) (1968)

Lygia Pape, Divisor from Para Site on Vimeo.

Lygia Pape (1927-2004, Brazil)

“Lygia Pape was part of the generation of artists who founded the Neo–concrete movement in Brazil, an experimental moment of constructivism and geometric abstract art, which manifested in South America in the late 1950’s. Neoconcretist artists like Pape sought to explore ideas of colour and form in relation to the sensorial cartography of the individual and the collective.

The work Divisor was originally performed on the streets of Rio de Janeiro in 1968. It is composed of an immense white fabric, which can be seen as a large scale white monochrome and is activated by a participative audience. The only visible part of each participant is their head, piercing through the fabric, whilst their hidden bodies jointly move along public space. The amorphous mutant forms created throughout the piece reflect the subjectivity of the participants who struggle between individualism and solidarity with the collective experience.” (credit)

Jeremy Wood, My Ghost (2000-2016)

“The qualities of our journeys are as subtle as the strokes of a pencil.
Our travels are textured as we squiggle on foot, dither at junctions, speed along motorways, and fly through air corridors.

For fifteen years I’ve record all my journeys with GPS to map where I have been and how I got there. It is a form of personal cartography that documents my life as visual journal.

Our journeys are shaped by the rules of the landscape. We route along engineered solutions as defined by paths and boundaries that tweak and tamper with our travels. At a time when it’s getting harder to experience the feeling of being lost perhaps we should try and stray away from recommended routes.” (credit)

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“Jeremy Wood is an artist and mapmaker whose work is an expression of the poetry and politics of space. For over a decade he has been exploring GPS satellite technology as a tool for digital mark making on water, over land, and in the air.

Wood started GPS drawing to investigate the expressive qualities of digitally tracing his daily movements. His work binds the arts and sciences by using languages of drawing and technology to present a personal cartography. By revealing ones tracks the technology can introduce new approaches to travel, navigation and local awareness. GPS drawing engages a range of creative applications and challenges perceptions of scale by travelling as a geodetic pencil.

Wood specialises in public artworks and commissions with an original approach to the reading and writing of places. His work is exhibited internationally and is in the permanent collection of the London Transport Museum, the V&A, and the University of the Arts in London.” (credit)

William Anastasi, Untitled (Pocket Drawings) (1969)

scribbly drawings

“Anastasi folded these sheets into eight squares, making them small enough to fit into his pocket. As he walked, he held a tiny, soft pencil against the exposed paper inside the cramped space of his pocket; the resulting marks graph his movements. When he deemed a section complete, Anastasi refolded the sheet, creating a new blank surface, and the process began again. “I love walking,” the artist has explained. “I find that walking does something to my thinking, to my mental process, that is different from sitting or lying down.” These “pocket drawings” are part of a broader practice that Anastasi has described as “unsighted,” including works made while walking (holding a pad, he looks at his destination as he draws) and riding the subway (the train’s stops and starts, bumps and turns, direct the line’s size, weight, and orientation). — Gallery label from A Trip from Here to There, March 15–July 30, 2013.

Medium Pencil on two sheets of transparentized paper
Dimensions each: 10 7/8 x 14″ (27.6 x 35.6 cm)” (credit)