Defining Drawing

By Broadside Correspondent Sonya Hudson

Phyllis Rosenzweig, curator of works on paper at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., presented a lecture Thursday, April 10 in Harris Theatre entitled “Does Drawing Matter?” as part of the Visual Voices Lecture Series sponsored by the department of Art and Visual Technology.

In answering this question, Rosenzweig considered subsequent questions, to whom and why drawing matters.

Curators tend to think that “drawings are a record of artist’s hand and serve as an indication of the artist’s thought process,” Rosenzweig said.

She expressed that drawings are important because they are immediate representations of the artist’s thought process. Drawings are also methods of problem solving and means to develop skills.

Rosenzweig showed a slide show incorporating the work of several different artists to convey the various definitions and uses of drawings. One artist included in this presentation was William Kentrich.

Kentrich, an African artist, creates films based on his drawings. He actually sketches a drawing, takes a picture of the drawing, changes something in the drawing, takes another picture and continues this process in order to create a film. The film is a series of shots of a drawing in progress that captures the entire evolution of the drawing.

Drawings are important to numerous artists including filmmakers, sculptors and photographers. Sculptors use drawings as a means of acquiring information for their work. Photographers can sketch out drawings of scenarios for photographs. Drawings serve as a sort of preparation for what they envision their final product to be.

Lawrence Weiner, a conceptual artist, is more interested in the idea of the execution of the artwork, the “how to” part, rather than the physical creation. Weiner uses language in a lot of his work. In 1991, Weiner’s work was shown in the Hirshhorn Museum. He applied words to the inner part of the ceiling that read, “Chains wrapped around one thing or another with the passage of time.”

Drawings incorporating language and writing are important to Weiner for his creations.

Rosenzweig concluded by comparing drawing to writing. Notes and diagrams of writers can be equated to the drawings of artists. Drawings go through an editing process much like that of manuscripts. Drawings demonstrate the thought processes of artists while writing is obviously the thought process of writers.

In the discussion that followed the lecture, audience members began to question the definition of drawings. Rosenzweig noted that the Hirshhorn Museum categorizes types of artwork by the material the artwork is on, in which art on paper is denoted as drawings.

Art students in the audience then began a debate on the influence of electronic technology, namely computers, on artists and their drawings.

Some students argued that the computer will never completely eliminate the use of pencil and paper in the creation of drawings. Citing the fact that handwriting has yet to be completely eliminated, students pointed out that drawings by hand are more personal and intimate than those created electronically.

Other students argued that computers are a medium that is easier to control. The computer has “undo” and “erase” buttons. For those perfectionists, this option is preferred. A drawback to the use of computers is that they don’t have a record of every stage of the drawings but jump to the finished product. It is more difficult to see the development of the product in both drawings and writings when conducted electronically.

Drawings are used for recording, adjusting and planning ideas. Drawings can also be a sort of conversation, in which the entire thought process of the artist can be seen. Drawings reflect the action of someone’s hand, and are personal. Some famous artists created drawings but did not view them as works of art.

“Michelangelo never considered his drawings to be art,” Rosenzweig said. “He did not put them on display for they were only a means to an end.”

Despite the changes in technology and time, drawings continue to matter. They are viewed as art, even masterpieces, in modern art. Drawings are used in different ways by different artists, depending on their individual expertise.