Selections 17

Selections 17, a group exhibition of works by emerging artists, opened at The Drawing Center in 1982. The twelve artists in the exhibition were chosen through the Viewing Program at the Center, an innovative nonprofit space for the study and exhibition of drawings.

The artists in the exhibition were: Peter Drake, Marilyn Holsing, Michael Katz, John Knecht, Donato Mancini, Kevin McGrath, Sandra Moore, Howard Nathenson, Michael Newhard, Michele Owings, David Reeb, and Chrisanne Stathacos. Works in the exhibition were varied and conformed to no specific theme, but rather, illustrated the diversity of ways in which younger artists worked with paper.

Two artists in Selections 17 exhibited works done for animated films — John Knecht's gouache paintings on paper were studies for a film in progress about Vietnam and were derived from his memories as a drafted American soldier there. Sandra Moore's pastel mural based on a Gertrude Stein quote was also a backdrop for a short film. Although Peter Drake's disquieting black-and-white scenes were of contemporary suburban life, their vocabulary drew heavily on 14th- and 15th-century Italian art. Donato Mancini's large works depicted crowds and smaller groups in recreational activities. Other narrative works included Marilyn Holsing's work, which was done in metallic pencil on black paper and described couples on the brink of disaster. Howard Nathenson's graphite landscape panoramas were done both on site and from the artist's imagination. Michael Katz worked with images combined from black-and-white photographs in his air-brushed landscapes, and David Reeb satirized politics and current events in storyboard-like paintings on paper.

Found objects, small toys, and recurring three dimensional organic forms characterized the works of Chrisanne Stathacos. Abstract works included those by Kevin McGrath, whose elegant oil pastel drawings were formed by adding and working over linear elements, and Michele Owings, who incised paint on a rolled translucent surface using stenciled units in configurations. Michael Newhard's small works combined a painterly technique with indirect references to kimonos.

A symposium of all the participating artists took place on Wednesday evening, May 26, at 7:30 p.m. Artists discussed their work and answered questions from the audience.