A Question of Emphasis: Louise Fishman Drawing

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Grid-based abstract oil painting with bright colors amid finely-drawn black squares by abstract artist Louise Fishman
Louise Fishman, Bel Canto, 2014. Oil on linen. 74 x 88 inches. Courtesy of the artist. © Louise Fishman

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Two pages of an artist book by abstract artist Louise Fishman. On the left side, a grey textured rectangle with dark charcoal at center; vertically overlaid with white paint/collage. On right, a similar composition made of bent aluminum and wire on paper.
Louise Fishman, detail from Book of Abuse, 1993–94. Acrylic, oil, oil stick, graphite, staples, and wire with aluminum and paper collage on paper; Japanese Leporello Binding. 6-3/8 x 3-5/8 x 1-5/8 inches. Courtesy of the artist © Louise Fishman

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Oil and wax drawing of an irregular prism in whites and greys to show the dimensionality of the shape. It seems to come forward from the paper in 3 dimensions. By abstract artist Louise Fishman
Louise Fishman, My Pigeon, 1976. Oil and wax on paper. 30 1/2 x 22 1/2 inches. Courtesy of the artist. © Louise Fishman

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Circular abstract painting in blues and greens, A pencil has been used to inscribe words on the thickly applied acrylic paint. By abstract artist Louise Fishman
Louise Fishman, “Pencil over 2 Colors,” from Leftover Colors, 1974. Acrylic on paper. 18 3/4 x 20 inches. Courtesy of the artist. © Louise Fishman

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Charcoal and brown watercolor painting that follows the grid, but softly with organic curves. The painting is a full 30 inches tall, so one gets a sense for the physical movement of the arm and hand of the artist in making it. By Louise Fishman
Louise Fishman, Untitled, 2001. Charcoal and gouache on paper. 30 7/8 x 22 7/8 inches. Courtesy of the artist. © Louise Fishman

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Charcoal drawing of a man in underwear, looking down, facing the viewer, on cream-colored paper. Outline of centered, standing figure is densely black; shaded areas show paper texture.
Louise Fishman, Untitled, 1980. Charcoal on paper. 25-1/4 x 19 inches. Courtesy of the artist. © Louise Fishman

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Charcoal drawing with paint. Black paint has been applied toward the top, then removed to reveal curved lines beneath. Toward the bottom are speckles of bright colors that give the painting a lightness and vibrancy beneath the darker field above.
Louise Fishman, Untitled, 2001. Acrylic and charcoal on paper. 30 1/8 x 22 1Ž4 inches. Courtesy of the artist. © Louise Fishman

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Densely painted, "Untitled" by Louise Fishman pairs vibrant color (green field and orange drawn lines) with a black grid with streaks of white. Tempera, watercolor, and ink are all used.
Louise Fishman, Untitled, 2013. Tempera, ink, and watercolor on paper. 24 x 18 inches. Courtesy of the artist. © Louise Fishman

Exhibition

On view
Aug 26, 2021 to Feb 26, 2022
Main Level, East Gallery

Louise Fishman (United States, 1939-2021) was an established artist known for her ambivalent engagement with male-centered abstract painting traditions.

Her physical and process-driven work remakes the abstract expressionist gesture and the minimalist grid into tools that communicate history and emotion centered in her identities as Jewish, feminist, and lesbian.

A Question of Emphasis: Louise Fishman Drawing is the first career spanning exhibition and publication of Fishman’s works on paper from 1964 to the present. The project includes more than 100 works from the artist’s archive that have rarely been exhibited alongside significant institutional and private loans.

Citing John Cage’s response in 1965 to the question, “what is drawing?” A Question of Emphasis encompasses collage, oil and wax, thread, acrylic text, ink, charcoal, printmaking, oil stick, watercolor, and tempera in Japanese-bound Leporello (accordion) books. This full range of mediums foregrounds Fishman’s robust and dedicated practice of works on paper, which have never been studies for her large canvases. Instead, Fishman used drawing to think through physicality, materials, and intimacy on a different register: generally small- and medium-scale, often sculptural and tactile, and aligned to her particular historical contexts and her communities.

A Question of Emphasis examines the relationship between artist’s biography and drawing through feminist and queer perspectives. Fishman’s drawings are distinctive within her full oeuvre because many are dedicated to lovers—an illustrious network of lesbian writers, scholars, and critics that include Bertha Harris, Esther Newton, and Ingrid Nyeboe, Fishman’s spouse and longtime partner of the late critic and writer Jill Johnston. Fishman’s works on paper also honor the artist’s greatest teachers—Paul Cézanne, Piet Mondrian, Franz Kline, John Cage, Eva Hesse, and Agnes Martin among them.

Some works are collaborative, including prints Fishman made using her artist mother’s collagraphic plates, and her Angry Women acrylic text series made for friends and muses during periods of feminist consciousness raising in the 1970s (Fishman was a member of the activist groups Redstockings and Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell [W.I.T.C.H.] and editor of the Heresies journal issue on lesbian art and artists).

Drawing is often perceived as a window to an artist’s interiority and a spontaneous activity that happens more readily than painting on canvas. This project is a curatorial experiment that instead follows Fishman’s lead, through drawing, to convene a community of living and historical figures that are integral to the construction of self. While centered on the artist’s hand, Fishman’s works on paper are in fact radically open and give audiences a strong perspective of artmaking as a world-making project.

The exhibition catalogue published by KAM with Lucia | Marquand and distributed by D.A.P. features newly commissioned essays by KAM curator Amy L. Powell, scholars and artists Jill H. Casid and Catherine Lord, and a conversation between Fishman and artist Ulrike Müller.

Curated by Amy L. Powell, curator of Modern and Contemporary Art

Lead exhibition support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation American Art Program. Additional funding is provided by the Rosann Gelvin Noel Fund; the College of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Vielmetter Los Angeles; Sueyun Locks, the Locks Foundation; Karma, New York; and the Sandra L. Batzli Memorial Fund.

 

Ricker Library of Architecture and Art has created a library guide for this exhibition with resources for further reading and visual arts research. | A Question of Emphasis: Louise Fishman Drawing Library Guide

Downloadable files | Transcript of Sept 24, 2021 Gallery Talk by curator Amy L. Powell 

The exhibition is available for travel starting in Spring/Summer 2022. For more information or a prospectus, please email the curator Amy L. Powell or Museum Director Jon L. Seydl.

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