Mark Manders: Room with Several Night Drawings and One Reduced Night Scene

For his first solo exhibition in the United States, Mark Manders (born 1968) created an installation in The Drawing Center, which focused on the role of drawing in Self Portrait as a Building, a work-in-progress that the artist had been developing for 14 years prior to the exhibit. Manders’ installation consisted of drawings produced specifically for the exhibition (including both works on paper and wall drawings) and framed drawings never before exhibited in the United States.

Manders combined these various presentations of drawing with sculptures and everyday objects, such as cups and ropes. In this way, Manders used the exhibition to explore the particular relationships between drawing and writing, drawing and sculpture, and drawing and space explorations that are at the core of his practice. Manders also draws into question the status of the “art object,” transforming a stack of drawings into a pile of paper, with the images hidden from the viewer. For Manders, drawing is a method of researching and reproducing thought. For example, the rope not only connects real things, but also becomes—as do linear forms in general—an expression of “current thought,” establishing a connection between objects that constitute units of meaning. Room with Several Night Drawings and One Reduced Night Scene provided an opportunity for examining Manders’ work within the context of the distinctive qualities of the medium of drawing.

Mark Manders, Room with Several Night Drawings and One Reduced Night Scene was held at the Drawing Room on 40 Wooster Street, and ran consecutively with Selections Summer 2000, which was held at 35 Wooster Street.