Erwin Wurm: Performance Drawings

Performance Drawings was a series of five short solo exhibitions, taking place in The Drawing Center's exhibition space at 40 Wooster Street. The series presented the work of artists engaged in exploring the intersection between drawing and performance. Several of the performances encouraged audience interaction and the series as a whole offered a unique opportunity to encounter process-oriented and multi-disciplinary works.

An artist from Vienna, Erwin Wurm made schematic "instruction" drawings of humorous yet at times disturbing interactions between the individual and simple household objects. In the drawings, common things like chairs, bottles, buckets, and boxes were depicted as rudimentary props for the body. In one example, a bent-over figure balanced a cup and saucer on their back. As part of the drawing series, entitled One Minute Sculptures, Wurm performed the illustrated acts on a platform stage that nearly filled the entire space, making his body the prop of objects and vice versa. Following this performance, the viewers were invited to enact these drawings and continue the performance during the course of the exhibition, utilizing the objects that were depicted in the drawings and that were available on the platform.

To accompany Performance Drawings, The Drawing Center published Drawing Papers 21, which included an introduction by The Drawing Center Director, Catherine de Zegher, alongside essays by Elizabeth Finch and Tom McDonough. Also included were texts and projects by the artists, and a selection of black-and-white illustrations of the artists' works.