Drawing Now: Eight Propositions
October 17, 2002–January 6, 2003

Purchase the exhibition catalogue

This exhibition showcases over two hundred recent works on paper, all carefully executed and highly finished, by twenty-six artists from Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The small and large drawings are executed in a wide range of mediums and include series rarely seen in their entirety and newly commissioned, site-specific wall projects. Some show affinities with illustration, fashion, or comic strips; others are closer to industrial and commercial renderings; still others take ideas from the traditions of ornament. In technique, medium, size, scale, and imagery, the drawings are broadly diverse, but they share an impulse: the art explored in this exhibition is not sealed inside the realms of aesthetics and theory but refers to the languages of the life around us, communicating information, telling stories, creating scenarios, and conjuring newly imagined worlds.

Organized by Laura Hoptman, Guest Curator. This exhibition is supported by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc., The Friends of Contemporary Drawing of The Museum of Modern Art, and Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg. Additional funding is provided by Patricia and Morris Orden, the Mondriaan Foundation, Dianne Wallace and Lowell Schulman, Pro Helvetia, Dorothy Bandier, Hilary Jane Rubenstein, The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art, and The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art. The accompanying publication is made possible by an anonymous donor. The accompanying educational programs are made possible by BNP Paribas.

Pictured above:
Laura Owens. Untitled. 2000. Cut and pasted colored papers, watercolor, synthetic polymer paint, and pencil on paper, 39 1/8 x 27 5/8" (99.4 x 70.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchased with funds provided by The Friends of Contemporary Drawing. Photo courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London. © Laura Owens