Galerie im Taxispalais

The Drawingroom

with Agostino Arrivabene, Lucie Beppler, Geoff Chadsey, Andrea Fogli, Nikolaus Gansterer, Waqas Khan, Avish Khebrehzadeh, Franz Mölk, Danica Phelps, Christian Schwarzwald, Paul Thuile, Sandra Vasquez de la Horra, Maya Zack, Michael Ziegler, Ralf Ziervogel

The exhibition The Drawingroom will present fifteen international artists whose works focuse primarily on the medium of drawing. The artists, born in different generations, emphatically underline the possibilities of content and form offered by contemporary drawing. For all of these artists, drawing is far more than sketching; not simply the notation of ideas, it is employed as a highly independent medium with which it is possible not only to plumb the imaginary spaces of the mind but also to investigate spatial contexts. Research into the phrase “Drawingroom” reveals that its initial meaning was unconnected with drawing but referred to a room in a house where guests were to be entertained. It is a salon, a social room that provides a platform for stimulating conversations and discussions about current, socially relevant topics. In this spirit, the exhibition questions the medium of drawing with respect to its contemporary discourse. Abstraction and figuration, political statements, issues of the body and gender, introspection and the fantastic are shown to equal degrees. Internationally, the exhibition follows the line of a series of presentations in recent years examining the subject of drawing in a more differentiated fashion, demonstrating the vitality of the medium and the diversity of possibilities it offers.