Three Exciting Exhibitions I'd Like to See

Gerhard Richter, the German artist, is known primarily as a painter. But the Drawing Center is showing fifty graphite, ink, and watercolor works on paper made between 1966 and 2005. They are terrific! Here are three  examples:

 Gerhard Richter

watercolor on paper

Gerhard Richter

ink on paper

Gerhard Richter

water color on paper

And then there is Dan Colen, whose show at Gagosian Gallery in New York is reviewed in this morning's NY Times. He is interested in how randomness can transform something, which is one of my interests, as well. One of his large works on canvas was made by "drawing" with grass stains. The stains were acquired by dragging the canvas across a grassy field. He also likes to work with chewing gum as a medium, like this:

Dan Colen

chewing gum on canvas

The third show I'd love to see is in Milan, the work of Roland Flexner discussed in this month's Art in America. I am drawn to his ink and bubble drawings, created by a process he developed inspired by the Japanese marbleizing process call suminagashi. He works by creating a structure for uncontrollable processes.

Roland Flexner

ink bubble drawing

I, too, like to work with processes incorporating accident and chance. Most of my mixed media works on paper are exciting to me to create precisely because of those elements.

Now, I am headed to the studio to continue working on an intaglio project. I am putting the image on this plate in the traditional, very controlled way, although I usually like to apply methods of chance to intaglio, too, as in this example:

Two Hearts, II (self-portrait), 1993

intaglio with chin colle

18" x 18"

The plate I'm working on now in the very controlled, traditional way will be printed using the viscosity method (see August 13th post). I'm finding, with delight, that the viscosity method can be adapted very nicely to incorporate chance. Oh boy!