Johanna Calle, LLUVIAS (RAIN), 2012-13 Typed text on ledger paper Courtesy of Casas Riegner Galley.

Opening Thursday, October 10th is the group exhibition, “Marking Language” at the Drawing Room in London.  This exhibition will feature works by Pavel Büchler, Johanna Calle, Annabel Daou, Matias Faldbakken, Karl Holmqvist, Bernardo Ortiz, and Shahzia Sikander.

Throughout the twentieth century, and in particular since the 1960s, artists have mined language for the subject and matter of their art, incorporating the mode, format and meaning of text into their work. For their first collaborative project, Drawing Room, London and Drawing Center, New York, will present parallel exhibitions that explore the relationship between linguistic communication and drawing in recent art. The selected artists take language and the written word as the subject of the work itself, rather than to influence interpretation of an accompanying image. Together the two exhibitions present an international selection of artists from the United Kingdom, Belgium, Colombia, Greece, Lebanon, Norway, Sweden, Argentina and the United States. Collectively these artists demonstrate an inventive use of words and text, creating works that are visually rich and that evoke multiple meanings.

“Marking Language” could be read as a series of propositions, or positions, that consider the relationship between drawing and written communication in contemporary practice. It takes work being made today, by seven artists, of roughly the same generation but originating from very different parts of the world, to explore this rich territory. The artists in “Marking Language” use a range of strategies to divorce language from a linear narrative, for example, by fragmenting words and phrases, or by including multiple and contradictory graphic languages, and giving form to phonetic words and expressions. The work can be seen as a reflection of the fragmentation of reality, despite the illusion of world-wide connection, and a yearning for intimate and meaningful dialogue.

For more information visit here.