Author Archives: Rachel Nackman

Sarah Zabrodski on Brice Marden

By Rachel Nackman | Published: 02/02/2010

To create a square and two rectangles from five singular lines might be considered a bit of a geometric riddle. But here Marden eschews puzzle solving for process and turns simple lines into vehicles for internal expression. Despite the seemingly straightforward task of drawing three shapes from five lines, the movement behind these lines belies a broader range of technical considerations and expressive charges.

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Karen Schiff on Stefana McClure

By Rachel Nackman | Published: 02/01/2010

Whispers of language
We can never fully hear
What words try to say

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Tod Lippy on Mary McDonnell

By Rachel Nackman | Published: 01/31/2010

Mary McDonnell’s Untitled, 2007, provokes in me the same feeling I get when I come upon chalk boundary lines on a high-school playing field, or see a freshly furrowed field.

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Mary McDonnell on Tad Mike

By Rachel Nackman | Published: 01/30/2010

The composer Cornelius Cardew wrote an instruction in his 1969 Nature Study Notes (HMSIR43) for the participant-performer to walk down the street, “…picking up en route odd items, such as driftwood, scrap metal, etc. Make sounds in any way with the items picked up.”

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Sara Sosnowy on Deborah Nehmad

By Rachel Nackman | Published: 01/29/2010

BURNS
DOTS
NUMBERS
LETTERS
HOLES
DENSE
LOOSE
RAIN
ACID RAIN
TAR
SMOKE

Nicole Fein on Jill O’Bryan

By Rachel Nackman | Published: 01/28/2010

Grounded by air,
This is a meditation.
One by one, each breath becomes a mark.
The marks are steady and regular,
yet each one is unique.
To observe one’s breath without affecting it;
to move with it, without moving it.
To become conscious of the unconscious.
Documenting presence, the drawing is a diary,
ever evolving.

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Posted in Jill O'Bryan, Nicole Phungrasamee Fein | 1 Response

Stefana McClure on Gloria Ortiz-Hernández

By Rachel Nackman | Published: 01/27/2010

I prefer to see with closed eyes.
- Josef Albers

Christine Hiebert on Tristan Perich

By Rachel Nackman | Published: 01/26/2010

Is this drawing an alibi for
what the artist was doing between 1:11 and 4:32pm?
It draws us close; we’re willing to listen.
Even as the markings are decoy:
etched by code-driven stylus — switched on, later off.
Perhaps forensics will find fingerprints
in the soft white of the paper,
handled with uncharted frequency
on forgotten days.

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Posted in Christine Hiebert, Tristan Perich | 2 Responses

Kristin Holder on Sylvia Plimack Mangold

By Rachel Nackman | Published: 01/25/2010

This drawing does not lie in the province of artifice: there is no trickery, no trompe l’oeil, and no affectation of a dialogue between reality and a work of art. Untitled is the reality of Plimack Mangold’s process. It shows her synonymous employment of paint and tape as the materials, method and subject. However, her depiction of painted “tape” and painted “paint” stops far short of the real thing—an intentional disparity that stops us from naming the image and instead creates a stage on which the image becomes a series of movements, choreography.

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Karen Schiff on Erwin Redl

By Rachel Nackman | Published: 01/24/2010

This drawing buzzes. This comes in part from the intensity of the red and the black against their tumbling mat of white. But it also comes from what might not be visible in this picture of this picture: the edges of the rectangles crackle.

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