“Where Do We Stand? Two Years of Drawing with Open Sessions is the second whole group exhibition of the Open Sessions program. The exhibition gives the museum over to an exploration of contemporary drawing that encompasses video, sculpture, photography, and installation, as well as traditional drawing forms. Where Do We Stand? places drawing at the center of conversation around temporary, jerry-rigged, and heterogeneous urban spaces from Houston to Paris to Vietnam. It looks at the potential of ruin and rebuilding in the desert, the suburbs and the city, and considers both saturation and secrecy in relation to images, language, and architecture.

Open Sessions is a hybrid exhibition/residency program created by Lisa Sigal and Nova Benway, Open Sessions Curators. It provides unique opportunities for selected artists to contextualize their work through exhibitions, public programs, workshops, and working dinners. The artists selected for Open Sessions may or may not draw as their primary means of art-making. The two-year program engages musicians, architects, dancers, poets—anyone who is interested in expanding the boundaries of drawing. Open Sessions artists work together to create a dynamic, continuous conversation, viewing drawing as an activity rather than a product.” — The Drawing Center

James Mercer, The Reservoir, 2017. Still from digital video (19 minutes). Courtesy of the artist.

jc lenochan, Melanin Chronicles: The Come Up of a Dual Intellectualism, 2016-2017. Chalk and charcoal on paper, 55 x 48 inches.

Jennifer May Reiland, Blowing Smoke (after Bolaño), 2015. Watercolor and pen on paper, 7 x 10 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

Nsenga Knight, Photo Text Drawing 2, 2016. Archival pigment print, 40 x 32 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

Olalaken Jeyifous, Na you dey drive, 2016. Black card-stock on watercolor paper, 30 × 22 inches.

Rodrigo Valenzuela, Hedonic Reversal No. 14, 2014. Archival pigment print, 54 x 44 inches. Courtesy the artist and Envoy Enterprises.

Images courtesy The Drawing Center.