CC BY
10
Section 1. Visual arts
https://doi.org/10.29013/EJA-20-2-3-6
Mohsen Veysi, Independent Scholar, PhD in Humanities, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia E-mail: mohsen.veysi@unimore.it
DRAWING IN CONTEMPORARY ART FAIRS: ARTISSIMA
Abstract. After a brief explanation of the changing role of drawing from preparatory tool to an independent medium, this paper will demonstrate the growing role of drawing in recent years in the contemporary art world within the context ofArtissima which is one of the most important contemporary art fairs in Italy. The paper offers a brief account of the second edition of the Disegni Section. The exhibition occurred in Turin, Italy, at the 25th Artissima from November 2nd to the 4th, 2018.
Keywords: Disegni Section; Artissima; Francesc Ruiz; Raymond Pettibon; Silvia Baechli; William Kentridge; drawing.
The gesture of a hand using a tool such as a piece of a charcoal was perhaps the earliest manifestation of one of the oldest mediums: drawing. From the walls of prehistoric caves to ancient palaces, temples, shrines and tombs to the walls of our modern museums and galleries, and finally to our computers, tablets and cellphone screens - drawing, this ancient medium, has always been with us. As an art form, drawing has different functions. It can be used as a preparatory instrument for other visual media, or it can be presented as a finished work of art.
Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), who is arguably the father of art history, believed that drawing was the father of all major arts, and it was necessary for every artist to master drawing skills as the foundation for painting, sculpture and architecture. His ideas and theories on the importance of drawing gave birth to the first art academy in Europe. Under his influence, Cosimo I de' Medici established LAccademia delle Arti del Disegno (the Academy of the Arts of Draw-
ing) in 1563 in Florence, Italy. From the Renaissance until the beginning of modern art in the late 1800 s in Europe, drawing played a mostly preparatory role for other arts. At the beginning of Modernism, during the 1870 s and 1880 s, impressionist artists broke away from the academic traditions of studio painting and chose the en plein air approach to painting. Therefore, they stopped making preparatory drawings and painted directly on the canvas. Their approach freed drawing from its traditional role as a preparatory tool to become an independent medium.
In 1883, for the first time, George Seurat (1859— 1891) displayed his drawing entitled Aman-Jean (Portrait of Edmond François Aman-Jean), not as a preparatory study but as a finished work in a public exhibition at the Salon des Indepéndants in Paris. Jacob Bean defined this piece as the 'manifesto of the independence of draughtsmanship' (1964: 175). Since then, artists have continued to express themselves through the medium of drawing as they do with painting and
sculpture. Contemporary art after the 1960 s gave artists absolute freedom to choose their media. Artists began expressing their thoughts and ideas via a wide range of media, from the traditional to new and mixed media. Many artists chose the ancient medium of drawing as their main or one of their main mediums. While many artists continue to utilize traditional materials and techniques to produce works on paper, some contemporary artists choose to use digital and technological tools to produce technological drawings on screen, and others combine traditional and technological techniques to create animated drawings.
Today, nearly 450 years after Vasari founded LAccademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence, whose mission was to train young artists in drawing as the foundation for painting, sculpture, and architecture, many art schools, academies and universities around the world offer undergraduate and graduate degree courses focusing on drawing as an independent medium. Many galleries, art fairs, and biennials are dedicated to drawing and have successfully promoted this medium in recent years. All this proves the growth in popularity of drawing among contemporary artists and its importance in the contemporary art world. A great example is found in Italy's most important art fair, Artissima, which since 2017 has dedicated a section to the art of drawing and has offered a new prize entitled 'The Refresh Irinox Prize' within the fair's Disegni (drawings) Section. According to the art fair's official website, the prize 'celebrates the artist who most vividly conveys the expressive immediacy of drawing in a contemporary way' (2019: n.pag.).
In the first edition of the Disegni Section in 2017, curated by Luis Silva and Joao Mourao, directors of Kunsthalle Lissabon in Lisbon, Portugal, 26 galleries (ten Italian and sixteen international galleries) presented the drawings of 26 artists. On 4 November 2017, the jury, composed of Claire Gilman, chief curator at The Drawing Center in New York; Katharine Stout, deputy director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London; and Irina Zucca Alessandrelli, curator at the Ramo Collection in Milan, selected
David Haines, presented by the Upstream Gallery in Amsterdam, as the winner.
The second edition of the Disegni Section in 2018 was again curated by Luis Silva and Joao Mourao, with the participation of 22 galleries exhibiting the drawings of 23 contemporary artists. The 2018 Refresh Irinox Prize was awarded to Francesc Ruiz, presented by the Garcia Galleria in Madrid. In 2019, for the third consecutive year, Silva and Mourao again curated the Disegni Section of Artissima. The third edition featured 21 galleries (eleven international and ten Italian) presenting the drawings of 21 contemporary artists. The international jury, consisting of Simon Castets, director of the Swiss Institute in New York; Krist Gruijthuijsen, director of the KW Berlin Institute of Contemporary Art; and Oleg G. Slyngstadli, director of the Oslo Biennale, selected Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, presented by ABRARA Gallery in Caracas, as the winner of the 2019 Refresh Irinox Prize.
The fourth edition of the Disegni Section will be curated by two female curators: Letizia Raga-glia, an independent curator from Bolzano, Italy, and Bettina Steinbrugge, director of Hamburg Kunstverein. The 2020 Disegni Section will be completely dedicated to female artists; the curators explain that 'we wanted to take a deeper look at the place occupied by women in drawing and to explore multiple facets of this medium: abstract, primitive, functional, urban, mixed media, surreal, amazon-like, objective... drawings as microcosms [that] allow an intimate insight into the artists' world' [3]. Artissima 2020 will take place in the northern city of Turin from 4 to 8 November 2020. The number of galleries and artists participating will be announced soon on the art fair's website. The rest of the article offers a brief account of the second edition of the Disegni Section in 2018 with the aim of demonstrating the growing role of drawing in recent years within the context of one of the most important contemporary art fairs in Italy.
Disegni Section-Artissima, Turin, November 2nd to the 4th, 2018
The 25th Edition ofArtissima took place in Turin, Italy, from November 2nd to the 4th, 2018. The fair contained 195 galleries from 35 countries around the world. It exhibited the artwork of more than 1,000 artists divided into 8 different sections including: Main Section, Dialogue, New Entries, Art Spaces & Editions, Present Future, Back to the Future, Disegni, and Sound. Drawing began playing a more important role at Artissima in 2017, when the Disegni Section was created and officially dedicated to the artform. In 2018, the 2nd edition of the Disegni Section, curated by Luis Silva and Joao Mourao, was composed of 22 galleries from 12 countries. It displayed the drawings of 23 contemporary artists.
The Plan B Gallery presented the gestural and geometric abstract drawings ofVictor Ciato and the representational pencil drawings of Ciprian Muresan. Mure-san's All Images from a Book' series contained copies of images taken from books and catalogues and that were created during the Renaissance or by Baroque artists. These pieces ignite an artistic and historical dialogue between the artist, the viewer and the old masters.
Similarly to Ciprian Muresan, Marc Bauer and Marcel Van Eeden also used images as the basis for their drawings. In his pencil and coloured pencil drawings, the Swiss artist Marc Bauer investigated the themes of history and memory. Unlike Bauer, who uses found images from family albums, books, the Internet and films, Marcel van Eeden selects images for his pencil drawings from old newspapers, magazines, history books and films from the early 1900s to 1965, which was the year of the artist's birth. These images are used to show how the world looked before the artist was born.
Anne Koak's comic-drawings were on display in the Walden Gallery, while the Los Angeles-based Steve Turner Gallery exhibited the drawings ofClaire Milbrath. Koak's works demonstrated female sexuality through the figures of nude women performing daily activities, such as being pregnant, breast feeding, walking in the park and dancing. Claire Milbrath, on the other hand, questioned notions of muscularity
through her drawings of her invented character Poor Gray, a rich, nervous, aimless, homosexual man.
The Disegni Section also included the drawings of Enzo Cucchi, one of the Transavanguardia's champions; the British Tuner Prize winner sculptor Tony Cragg and younger artists, such as Jan Bajtlik and Diego Perrone.
The watercolours of Nikita Alexeev and Alexandere Singh, the oil paintings done on canvas by Bruno Pacheso, and the acrylic works done on paper by Walter Robinson were among the Disegni Section's painted drawings. These paintings combined fresh liquid colours, backgrounds left uncovered and a sense of immediacy and spontaneity brings paintings into the realm of drawing.
The work of Thomas Schütte included 10 pieces (all 5-colour silkscreens) printed on cardboard. The portfolio was titled Für Aussen (For Exterior). These drawings were originally done in preparation for the artist's sculptural projects. However, they were also able to challenge the border between painting, drawing and printmaking, and therefore should be considered finished works of art in their own right.
The exhibit also displayed the sculptural drawings of Carlos Nogueira. These were created with materials such as wood, paper, charcoal and iron, and they aimed to explore both natural and architectural space. Joana Escoval's brass, copper, gold and silver works, on the other hand, dealt with the relationship between the object and the pre-industrial era. Her metal sculptures hung on the walls of the exhibit and gave the impression of three-dimensional lines on white paper.
The artist Massinissa Selmani created mixed media work through the use of found objects and images from media. These pieces used a juxtaposition of diverse techniques in order to create work that could be defined as both drawing and installation. In Ignacio Uriarte's installation titled Dynamic Diagonal Grid, paper was no longer just the medium drawings are composed on, but rather it was the drawing itself. Within the exhibit, folded paper was
displayed on the walls in order to create the illusion of geometrical line drawings.
Text played a significant role in the drawings of Alice Attie and Raymond Pettibon. Alice Attie, for instance, attempted to examine the boundaries between writing and drawing. She attempted to determine when they work best together and when one becomes another. In Attie's textual work, writing became a way of drawing. In Raymond Pettibon's work, however, text and images were interdependent. By combining handwritten text and images within his drawings, Pettibon critiqued contemporary society and attacked issues such as war and nationalism.
There are seven prizes each year presented during the Artissima, and the Refresh Irinox Prize is given to an artist within the Disegni Section. In 2017, it was awarded to David Haines. In 2018, the prize was awarded by an international jury composed of Naomi Beckwith, Fernanda Brenner and Sohrab Mohebbi, to Francesc Ruiz, presented by the Garcia Galleria in Madrid. He was awarded as the artist with the most intriguing approach towards drawing. In his comic-like ink drawings, done on both paper and walls, Ruiz brought text and image together in a contemporary manner. Presented by the Rafaella Cortese gallery, the jury also awarded Silvia Bachli
an honourable mention for her constant experimentation with drawing and its limitations.
In 2018, drawings at the Artissima were not only presented within the Disegni Section. Many galleries within other sections also presented drawings. Within the fair's Main Section, for example, the Lia Rumma Gallery presented the drawings of William Kentridge, the Lorcan O'Neill Gallery presented the drawings of Pietro Ruffo, the Thomas Schulte Gallery presented Michael Muller's drawings, the Norma Mangione Gallery presented the sculptural drawings of Francesco Barocco, the P420 Gallery presented Riccardo Baruzzi's drawings and the Antonio Colombo Gallery presented Erika Nordqvist's drawings.
The Artissima has been one of Italy's most important contemporary art fairs since its establishment in Turin in 1994. It has also inspired the creation ofother art fairs in Turin. Today, Turin's Contemporary Art Week is composed of several art fairs, events and exhibitions. It attracts many visitors to the city and allows people to become involved with art. During my 2017 visit, I was amazed by even the taxi drivers' analyses and understanding of Turin's art fairs and contemporary art in general. For more information on this event please visit: https://www.artissima.art/
References:
1. Artissima Official Website. "Artissima launches Disegni an innovative section devoted to drawings". 2017. [Electronic resource]. URL: https://www.artissima.art/en/artissima-launches-disegni-an-innovative-section-devoted-to-drawings/ (Access date 22/06/ 2020).
2. Artissima Official Website. "Refresh Irinox Prize". 2019. [Electronic resource]. URL: https://www.artis-sima.art/en/open/refresh-irinox-prize-2/. (Access 22/06/2020) (In English).
3. Artissima Official Website. "Artissima presents Fondamenta". 2020. [Electronic resource]. URL: https://www.artissima.art/en/artissima-presents-fondamenta/ (Access 22/06/2020) (In English).
4. Bean J. 100 European Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum ofArt, New York, The Museum ofModern Art, 1962.- 224 p. (English).
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7. Negro Arnoldi F. Prosperi Valenti S. Il Disegno nella Storia dellArte Italiana, Carocci, 2003.- 319 p. (Italian).
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