THE DRAWING BOARD.(various artists, drawings, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 04-NOV-02

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COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

The dryly titled "Drawing Now: Eight Propositions," a show at the Museum of Modern Art, in Queens, is a trailblazing event for an art world that has sorely needed one. Laura Hoptman, the curator of the exhibition, which runs until January 6th, has sorted out a quiet but potent development of the last decade by focussing on an international array of twenty-six young but established artists of many tendencies. Her selections vary in quality, but even some of the weaker elements testify that artists are beginning to reconceive their vocation around the humble disciplines of pencil, pen, or brush on paper. She tacitly rejects the flabby creed of academic avant-gardism, which defines "art" as anything that an art institution chooses to exhibit, thus rendering the term so nebulous that judging it, other than as entertainment or politics, is a fool's errand. Although "Drawing Now" may be eclectic to a fault and indulgent of wacky formats--pointlessly large ones, in some cases--it affirms that a search is on for renewed standards of mastery, validity, and eloquence in a medium that has been the...

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