“Drawings that Work: 21st Drawing Show” at BCA

From my review of “Drawings that Work: 21st Drawing Show” at the Boston Center for the Arts:

"Drawings That Work," the 21st annual "Drawing Show" at the Boston Center for the Arts' Mills Gallery, surveys drawings as preparatory studies. It's an intriguing way to frame the show: how do artists think things through on paper?

The standout is pyrotechnics artist Ken Clark's sketches for his design of a 2001 fireworks display in Pennsylvania; they're exhibited with video of the actual fireworks. (The show as a whole could benefit from more preparation-and-result pairings.) X's and lines fill 32 sheets of graph paper like musical notation for the choreography of "sunball crossettes," "purple peonies," and "gold flitters." It's not the draftsmanship that pulls you in but the privileged glimpse into the pyrotechnic craft. Another highlight is Matthew Rich's colored-pencil sketchbook sketches of urgent little abstract rainbows and diamonds.

But most of the pieces by 36 artists picked by guest juror Andrew Stein Raftery — an engraver who teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design — just aren't that interesting.

Read the rest here (at the bottom).

“Drawings that Work: 21st Drawing Show,” Boston Center for the Arts, Mills Gallery, 539 Tremont St., Boston, through October 25.


Pictured from top to bottom: Matthew Rich, “Sketch for Striped (Sketchbook #2),” 2009; David Teng Olsen, “Never Ending Story”; Clara Lieu “Sculptural installation,” 2009; Nataliya Bregel, “Beit Yanai: Dog Walkers,” 2009.