PAST EXHIBITION
Rirkrit Tiravanija: Demonstration Drawings
September 12, 2008—November 6, 2008
Press Release
The Drawing Center presents Rirkrit Tiravanija: Demonstration Drawings,
in the Main Gallery. This exhibition, featuring approximately 200 works
on paper, will be the first U.S. museum exhibition of the artist’s
ongoing series of commissioned drawings derived from photographs of
demonstrations published in the International Herald Tribune.
While public protests and mass demonstrations are often associated with
the leftist politics of the 1960s, Tiravanija’s project reconsiders
their relevance in today’s political climate. For the Demonstration
Drawings, Tiravanija has commissioned Thai artists, many of them former
students, to create a series of photorealistic pencil drawings
depicting multifarious responses to power, oppression, and global
capital. Tiravanija’s drawings translate photojournalist depictions of
acts of political spontaneity into a medium itself characterized by
immediacy—turning ephemeral images of strife and social conflict into
documents of political aspiration.
By providing a perspectival view of collective actions, political
protests, and popular sovereignty movements worldwide, the
Demonstration Drawings confront commonly-held assumptions about
globalization, democratic mass movements, and ongoing forms of
resistance to economic liberalism. This exhibition is curated by João
Ribas.
Gallery Talk: Saturday, September 14, 5 pm
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Rirkrit Tiravanija (b. 1961, Buenos Aires, Argentina) was raised in
Thailand and studied in Canada, Chicago, and New York. He is currently
Associate Professor of Professional Practice, Faculty of the Arts, at
Columbia University, New York and lives in New York, Berlin, and
Thailand. Tiravanija’s work has been presented widely at museums and
galleries throughout the world including solo exhibitions at Musée
d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2005); Serpentine Gallery, London
(2005); Secession, Vienna (2002); and The Museum of Modern Art, New
York (1997). He has participated in such notable group exhibitions as
the Sharjah Biennial 8, United Arab Emirates (2007); 27th São Paulo
Biennial, Brazil (2006); Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for Night, New York
(2005), and the 50th Venice Biennale (2003). Tiravanija is the
recipient of numerous awards including the Silpathorn Award in 2007
from the Ministry of Culture of Thailand and the Hugo Boss Prize in
2004 from the Guggenheim Museum. His work is the subject of a
forthcoming solo exhibition in 2008 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York.
PUBLICATION
As part of its ongoing publication series, The Drawing Center will
publish the newly-formatted Drawing Papers 80: Rirkrit Tiravanija:
Demonstration Drawings, a 120-page publication featuring approximately
75 black-and-white reproductions of the works exhibited in the show as
well as essays by curator João Ribas and noted journalist and literary
critic David Reiff. |
