Monika Grzymala’s work always pushes the viewer—it forces us to question how we categorize artworks, what they’re made of, and where they can be installed. Monika has worked with adhesive tape, handmade washi paper, and a diverse range of other materials to create large scale drawings-in-space— works that are grounded in the idea of drawing and the artist’s direct engagement with materials, but that expand into three dimensions, filling and shaping the viewer’s own space.

Monika Grzymala. Untitled (Skeleton of a Drawing). 2010. Installation view (work on right) as part of On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century

For her project at MoMA, Monika had the daunting task of creating a work for one of the entrances to the exhibition On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century, currently on view in the Museum’s sixth floor galleries through February 7. This required her engagement with the Museum’s architecture and public space, including the monumental atrium space that opens up beneath it. Using a light-weight paper clay, the artist hand molded hundreds of lines, each a direct record of her hand and working process, and joined them together to create the elegant sculpture Untitled (Skeleton of a Drawing). Installed above the gallery door, it swoops out of the exhibition and across the wall, extending its line, and the line of the exhibition, down several floors. Created especially for the exhibition, and in direct response to this challenging but ultimately fruitful space, Monika’s work is a critical statement about what a drawing can be, and how it can leave the page to engage directly in our space and lives.

In the video above, Monika talks about her working process, and the creation of Untitled (Skeleton of a drawing). Let her work speak to you directly with a visit to the sixth floor of the Museum. Don’t miss it—On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century is only on view through February 7.