Near the entrance to the Drawing Center’s retrospective of work by late Belgian artist Stephane Mandelbaum hangs a diverse selection of portraits, arresting in their distortions and expressive immediacy, that signal his complex and conflicted experience of the aftermath of WWII. A drawing of Francis Bacon, known for painting distorted figures reflecting collective horror at the atrocities of the war, hangs next to a portrait of Bacon’s criminally connected lover, George Dyer, which in turn is close to a portrait of embattled Nazi paramilitary leader Ernst Rohm. Giving voice to a disturbing constellation of ideas via texts in Yiddish, French, Italian and German and pornographic imagery, the drawings explore the artist’s obsessions with sex and power which extend into his family life. Under the portrait of Bacon pictured here is an almost totally obscured drawing of Mandelbaum’s father, artist and professor Arie Mandelbaum, visible just as a predella, a platform on which an altar would be placed. (On view in SoHo through Feb 18th).
Tag: the drawing center
David Hammons at The Drawing Center
The US flag is shelter and garment for the individual depicted in this 1969 body print/screenprint by David Hammons, now on view in a powerful show of Hammons’ meticulous body prints at the Drawing Center. Made by applying oil to his skin, pressing his body to paper and applying powdered pigments, the print is one of many that incorporate the US flag to question its meaning for Black communities. (On view in SoHo through May 23rd. Appointments, masks and social distancing required. Admission charges waived).
Ann Wilson at The Drawing Center
Inspired by the fact that the Drawing Center’s 1866 SoHo building originally housed a loom company, Chicago-based artist Anne Wilson’s installation is an artwork being gradually created by winding and crossing thread around the gallery’s columns. (Through December 14th).
Anne Wilson, To Cross (Walking New York), site-specific performance and sculpture, 2014.