a…is alter(ed): Open Sessions 12 explores the imaginative determination of “drawing” and “line” by relating it to a development process, social artifacts, psychological trace, and prosthetic memory—journals, maps, technology, and calendars. The poetics of flow between known and unknown is a feedback murmur that leads to clarity when engaging the object. a..is alter(ed) features Joeun Aatchim, Kenseth Armstead, Ludovica Carbotta, Billy and Steven Dufala, LaMont Hamilton, and Ester Partegàs.

For a…is alter(ed), experimental and traditional approaches to drawing are taken as a mode of inquiry, to produce the unexpected through ventriloquism (Aatchim); tell the story of a slave-turned-spy in the American Revolution (Armstead); upend notions of scale by drawing with an excavator shovel (Dufala Brothers); recover the role of imagination by projecting fictional narratives onto objects (Carbotta); welcome the blind and visually impaired into the space through braille-large-scale poems (Hamilton); and to disseminate advertisement-flyer-like drawings across The Lab and the neighborhood (Partegàs).

From October 12 until December 2019 in The Lab, Open Sessions presents five exhibitions organized by Rosario Güiraldes and Lisa Sigal, Open Sessions Curators, together with participating artists. Conceived and organized over fourteen months, The Lab exhibitions present experimental work and ideas, and take the form of thematic group shows. In the second year of the cycle, Open Sessions curators organize a full-museum exhibition to which all Open Sessions artists contribute work that best manifests and/or expands what drawing is.

About Open Sessions

Open Sessions builds on The Drawing Center’s long-standing legacy of championing work by early career artists who explore the nature of drawing in its many manifestations. Organized by curators Rosario Güiraldes and Lisa Sigal, Open Sessions is a two-year program held in two year cycles created as a platform for artists to find new approaches for contextualizing and exhibiting their work, through conversation, public programs, and thematic group exhibitions.