BEST: At the Menil Collection, How Artists Draw: Toward the Menil Drawing Institute and Study Center included all of the usual suspects of modern art. But the exhibition, curated by the brilliant Bernice Rose, chief curator of the Menil Drawing Institute, was anything but usual. Rose was Senior Curator of Drawings at the Museum of Modern Art for almost 25 years and she knows her subject so well that the exhibition seemed effortless. Rose went to the heart of art and put together a fascinating assortment of works with drawing as the common denominator. Drawing is direct, immediate and revealing, the thing every artist does or has done. In Rose’s hands, drawing was the equalizer for artists from Seurat to Serra. The content of their work was secondary, the focus was on the individual ways these artists made their marks and crafted their images. In less skillful hands How Artists Draw could have been an incredibly tired show. In Rose’s hands, it was a revelation. If only there had been a catalog…
Best/Worst No. 5: “How Artists Draw”
