Rirkrit Tiravanija: Demonstration Drawings Main Gallery September 12 � November 6, 2008 Opening Reception: Thursday, September 11, 6 � 8 pm Gallery Talk: Saturday, September 13, 5:00 pm
From September 12 to November 6, 2008, The Drawing Center will present 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 and the resistance to economic liberalism. This exhibition is curated by Jo�o Ribas.
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 Mus�e 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 S�o 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.
Greta Magnusson Grossman: Furni ture and Lighting Drawing Room October 17 � November 6, 2008 Opening Reception: Thursday, October 16, 6 � 8 pm Gallery Talk: Tuesday, October 21, 6:30 pm
The Drawing Center is pleased to present the first major U.S. exhibition to focus on the drawings of architect and industrial designer Greta Grossman. From October 17 through November 6, 2008, in the Drawing Room, Greta Magnusson Grossman: Furniture and Lighting will debut recently discovered industrial design drawings executed between 1948 and 1959 by the Scandinavian-born, Los Angelesbased artist.
Greta Magnusson Grossman (1906�1999) is today still an underrecognized figure in the Southern California design movement of the 1950s � �60s. Grossman was twice the recipient of the Museum of Modern Art�s �Good Design� award in 1950 and 1952. She was featured more than 14 times in John Entenza�s Arts & Architecture magazine between 1947 and 1960, and the houses, interiors, and objects she designed influenced a number of her better-known contemporaries, including Charles and Ray Eames, Richard Neutra, John Lautner, Irving Gill, and Pierre Koenig.
Greta Magnusson Grossman: Furniture and Lighting will feature small and large scale �shop� drawings of her metal lamps designed for the Ralph O. Smith Company; furniture designs for Glenn of California, Barker Brothers, and the G.T. line; as well as archival photographs of manufactured works from Grossman�s office that were used for client presentations. This exhibition is curated by Brett Littman, Executive Director of The Drawing Center.
ABOUT THE ARTIST Greta Magnusson Grossman was born in Sweden in 1906 and graduated from the School of Industrial Design in Stockholm in 1931. In 1933, she became the first woman to receive a prize for furniture design from the Swedish Society of Industrial Design. Grossman moved to Beverly Hills in 1941 and established her architecture, interior and industrial design practice there. Her designs have been exhibited at museums around the world including the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden; de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA; R�hsska Museum, G�teborg, Sweden; and the Walker Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN.
