Drawing on Sculpture: Graphic Interventions on the Photographic Surface
12 May – 11 August 2007
Exhibition in the Upper Sculpture Study Gallery, Leeds Art Gallery
Drawing on Sculpture looks afresh at relationship between sculpture and photography, taking note of the subtle ways in which drawing allows artists to use the flexibility of a two-dimensional medium to define and describe sculpture.
Paul Neagu, 'Hyphen over Skull' (1977, ink on photograph) Collection The Trustees of Paul Neagu Estate, courtesy Flowers
Artists have used photographs for many purposes, but this exhibition focuses on their use as a drawing board. It begins with Rodin, whose innovative use of photography is now well known, and comes up to the present day, with works by Hew Locke, whose graffiti-like over-drawing references both Rodin’s sculptures and Rodin’s graphic interventions.
Drawing on Sculpture includes around thirty works, highlighting the different reasons for sculptors to draw on photographs. These drawings provide a visual commentary on how sculptors think about their work and explore colour, outline, surface, layering, scale and meaning.
In some cases the artists' annotations are practical - dealing with issues of enlargement or with problem areas - while other modifications extend to the complete recontextualisation of the original work. The drawn line is also seen to be used as a way of animating the sculpture, as with the works of Paul Neagu or Tony Cragg, in which the line whips round the static form as if it were the wind. In this hinterland between two and three dimensions, impossible sculptures are allowed to exist.
Venue details
Venue address
Henry Moore Institute
The Headrow
Leeds
LS1 3AH
United Kingdom
T: 0113 246 7467
Opening times
Galleries: Tuesday to Sunday, 10am - 5pm
Research Library: Monday to Saturday, 10am - 5pm; Sunday, 1 - 5pm
Archive of Sculptors' Papers: Tuesday to Friday, by prior appointment
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