ArtSlant Review: Anschlüssel: London/Berlin at Centre for Recent Drawing

(Originally published on ArtSlant)

Most of us picked up a crayon to scribble before we could read or write. Whether we continue to draw or not, we’ve all experiences the primacy of that flow from brain, eye and hand into line onto a surface. Drawings are little windows into a person’s mind; as unique as a fingerprint, yet readable like a universal language.

 

C4RD’s new exhibition, Anschlüssel: London/Berlin, demonstrates how artists hailing from the artistic hotspots of London and Berlin (and, of course, within these cities from around the world) are interconnected by the practice of drawing in its various forms.

Its walls are plastered with an array of works, mostly on paper (although some extend into sculptural forms or moving image) that demonstrate the variety and idiosyncrasy of drawing practice amongst these artists, as well as the links and themes that arise when these works are collected together.

There are works of such structure and geometry, with precisely drawn vectors or layers of intricately cut out graph paper, that they’re mathematical. Compare these to fluid abstract lines that look like traces of impulsive, unhindered movement.

Look at the layering of line so fine that it makes the surface of the paper look like fabric, alongside work that actually uses thread but extends it past the edges of its support like a pencil line that has the ability to exist in thin air. Compare the ways in which the human form is represented or deconstructed.

Anschlüssel shows how one can take a line and see where it leads. In a field where the exchange of ideas is global and developments in media and technology mean that artistic forms and ideas are regularly usurped, it reiterates that nothing can truly replace drawing.

All images courtesy Center for Recent Drawing

From Berlin
EVA & ADELE, Frank Badur, Irina Baschlakow, Helen Cho, Nadine Fecht, Marc Gröszer, Bertram Hasenauer, Björn Hegardt, Olav Christopher Jenssen, Paco Knöller, Ulrich Kochinke, Takehito Koganezawa, Astrid Köppe, Valentin Emil Lubberger, Kazuki Nakahara, Mark Lammert, Corinne Laroche, Fiene Scharp, Hanns Schimansky, Andreas Schmid, Dennis Scholl, Chiyoko Szlavnics, Heidi Sill, Viktor Timofeev, Jorinde Voigt

From London

 
Maxime Angel, Daphne Warburg Astor, Frank Auerbach, Peter Blake, Scott Blaser, Kirsty Buchanan, George Charman, David Connearn, Maryclare Foa, Nick Fox, Joe Graham, Takayuki Hara, Claude Heath, Andrew Hewish, David Hockney, Károly Keserü, Paul Kindersley, David Murphy, Thomas Qualmann, Frances Richardson, Giulia Ricci, Danny Rolph, Gordon Shrigley, Bob and Roberta Smith, Kate Terry, Annabel Tilley, Virginia Verran