Event overview
The second annual Disegni network lecture on drawing, a collaboration between KU Leuven and Goldsmiths Art and Computing 'Drawing for Humans and Machines'.
The aids of technical drawing have been regularly used to counter the apparent vagaries of free-hand drawing. Within the context of the early 20th century historical avantgardes, what has come to be regarded as the diagrammatic mode had already become an established graphic idiom, with Dadaist as well as Constructivist artists frequently deploying rulers, compasses and graph paper. In this talk, Briony Fer explores the relationship between instruction and improvisation in the work of a range of artists, from Sophie Taeuber Arp’s use of drawing templates in the 1920s and 30s, through to Gabriel Orozco’s use of the rotational compass in his circle drawings from the 1990s on. In the practice of both artists, the cultural opposition between doodle and diagram clearly collapses.
Rather than apply a model of association, the talk speculates on the relation between contour and cut as an indicator of the historical proximity of drawing to collage. Graphic configurations are explored as potential or temporary holding patterns, as distinct from compositional pretexts; and curvature itself is opened to scrutiny, viewed as neither the sole preserve of an organic or technological realm. Rather than simply neutral or generic, it turns out that in practice the use of such templates and tools serves as a complicated kind of temporal measure, open to the radically contingent and circumstantial. The aim of the talk is to offer some thoughts on drawing to elucidate a technics of time, building on the work of theorist Mikhail Bakhtin and his idea of the chronotope to explore the temporal vagaries of the artefactual.
Bio: Briony Fer is an art historian who has written extensively on modern and contemporary art. Her thinking has consistently moved between the history of the avant-gardes and the work of contemporary artists, with an emphasis on interrogating what is the work that the artwork does. Her books include On Abstract Art (1997), The Infinite Line (2004) and Eva Hesse: Studiowork (2009) and Gabriel Orozco: thinking in circles (Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 2013). She has curated and co-curated several exhibitions, including Anni Albers (Tate Modern and K20 Dusseldorf 2018), Forms of Life: Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian (Tate Modern 2023), Louise Bourgeois: Conversations with Others (Nationalmuseum Oslo 2023) and most recently, Gabriel Orozco: Politecnico Nacional (Museo Jumex Mexico City 2024). Her next project is an exhibition and monograph on Sophie Taeuber Arp. She is Professor of History of Art at University College London and a Fellow of the British Academy.
Image credit: Gabriel Orozco, Untitled, 1994 (detail),
Graphite and ink on paper
10 1/2 x 8 1/4 in. (26.67 x 20.96 cm)
Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
Photo credit: Cathy Carver
Copyright: Gabriel Orozco
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 1 May 2025 | 6:00pm - 7:30pm |
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