In part one of this review we discussed the installation works and drawings of curator Narine Kchikian. We closed by stating that having the curator's work exhibited along with the artists they are choosing to show, offers viewers a different perspective on the curator’s sensibilities. We pick up this review at that point, having left the drawings of Kchikian, and moving up the stairs to the second floor.

While the connection between the curator's works and those artists she has chosen is clear and fits well, to distinguish this upstairs show by referencing “Drawing” seems a bit oddly titled. Yes Rebecca Tufts, Japeth Mennes, and to some degee Mike Andrews and Gregory Tom’s works could be seen as having a connection to drawing, but it is definitely difficult if not altogether impossible to reconcile the works of Mikolaj Szoska and Abigail Newbold in this context – even if in the statement drawing is becoming something larger than pencil on paper. If we’re going to categorize art, then that delineation should be clear.

If, however, we view this work as an extension of “Space Affair” (which itself had drawings dealing with issues of space), the show holds together quite convincingly.

Looking at the artists individually, we encounter Tufts and her wall-mounted sculptures. These are assemblage of fragments of combs, picks, straws, and invented forms that might be found in a bathroom drawer, which she’s recreated in ceramic attached to a clear Plexiglas ground. This is a sort of drawing, using the juxtaposition of the forms themselves, along with the shadows they cast, and the sharp reflection coming off the Plexi. The alignment of objects alters as one traverses around the piece, creating different compositions from every vantage point. The viewer can thus explore work viewing the parts as parts – imbued with the meaning that they have apart and together, as pure compositional elements, and as compositions that we, as the viewer, can alter and “redraw” through our own movement.

Andrews draws in space with fibers. On the floor he’s created a sculptural object, a thick mass of hand woven yarn, full of bright colors and organic forms. Tendrils of webbing stretch out from the body across the room. On the wall he has a “painting” created through computer aided embroidery – it shares much in common with the more sculptural piece, yet begins to resemble a map – perhaps a view of a city, streets drawn in string.

Mennes picks up this thread quite literally, with a piece “drawn” in brightly colored string fixed in clear resin. This creates ultra-delicate linework, a very organic mapping. As he moves to more traditional drawing media, this case marker, Mennes’ imagery maintains this organic nature – he could be drawing cellular colonies or soap bubble aggregations, or perhaps this is a topographical map of a city. His linework is quite precise and purposeful as a mapmaker must be. In one instance he folds this into three dimensions, drawing on a box. He digs deeper in this terrain, with amazingly involved drawings that would be appreciated for their obsessive qualities alone. But they are more than that. An attempt at description: one is a field of seemingly infinite dots, made with a single marker depression, accompanied by an equally obsessive number of circles made from a thin outer line. He does the same thing with a flat marker stroke and drawn rectangles. From afar or close up, there is much to see – like looking on a sea of humanity, a culture of bacteria, or the stars in the night sky. Perhaps the most eye catching piece is a brilliant literal color wheel, of wedges of brightly painted wood. While it attracts immediate attention it may not hold it as much as his more sophisticated drawings, which become terrain to get lost in and continue to explore at great depth.

Tom deals with depth through a flip book made from a succession of progressively closer satellite images (lifted from the web) taking the viewer on a “zoom” in flight deep into a Detroit neighborhood. We travel from the general to the very specific, happening upon houses which happen to be the site of an unauthorized art project in Detroit. Thus Tom connects the art of this book to art on another scale, in another venue – something that can’t be brought into the gallery, is transported here as the viewer is transported there.

Thinking on houses brings us to Szoska’s work, a cardboard room constructed within a room. This is quite a surprise – almost laugh out loud startling – to come upon an internal false front. Everything is built from strong, smooth cardboard (back with wood supports), even a table and the TV (or at least the case for the TV) inside. The TV displays a video shown in repetition of scenes of glass buildings reflecting the sky as the camera circles around entirely around them. The voice overs are of people giving directions to some location. The combination of the surreality of this false room – it’s a bit like living in a world where those fake computers at furniture stores are actually the real thing – and the video with an ethereal electronic soundtrack, keeps one immersed in the experience. I want to equate this with Alice falling down the rabbit hole or stepping through the looking glass, where this wonderland Szozka’s created is entirely in his head and now in ours. It’s odd to have that thought, as the previous exhibition in this very space, featured a giant photograph of a woman peering through a shroud, which also prompted thoughts of giant Alice trapped in a tiny house. This makes one wonder how much the space of the gallery enforces certain decisions to be made, and that the space influences the creation and the reading of the art more than we often give it credit. Which is in many ways the approach of Liu and Kchikian in their chair installation.
 

The final artist is Newbold, whose work deals entirely with the idea of home. She’s created a little portable slice of a home (on wheels!) suspended on the wall. This slice is complete with a chair, hooks for hanging, a fur rug, logs for heat, and more. Within this tiny fragment, all the elements of what might make a place a home are encapsulated. She elaborates on the notion of home with an accompanying visual and written display examining the various elements – containers (drawers, shelving, and the like), heat, bedding, surface, and decorations. By bringing this into a gallery space and breaking it down in such an abstract way, Newbold provides a unique context and a truly thoughtful examination of what home means.

Leaving this final space, we can look over the ledge and see once again Kchikian’s blue chair piece. Like Tom’s flip book, these chairs are now less sculptural and now about drawing – we are looking down on a flower, a form. We’ve come full circle from space to drawing to space again. – Nick Sousanis