The Madison Art Center is commissioning a major new work from the Brooklyn, New York-based sculptor Leonardo Drew. The large-scale sculpture and accompanying drawings will premiere in Madison from December 5, 1999 through February 13, 2000 before beginning a national tour.
Internationally renowned sculptor Martin Puryear noted in ARTnews (March 1997): "In Drew's hands, the detritus of consumer society is redeemed and made as rich as any tapestry. As social metaphor it's even richer." Built from rows of stacked cotton and wooden boxes, covered with found objects, and caked with rust to suggest decay, Drew's large wall reliefs function as social statements and as meditations on creation and process. To date, widely held interpretations of Drew's work center on the artist's African-American identity. His use of such evocative materials as bales of raw cotton, rope, and canvas bags like those of cotton pickers evoke black life under slavery; rusted debris found on city streets connotes urban degeneration. While the materials and context easily lend themselves to such readings, the artist's systematic gridding and complex layering of found objects reference both Minimalism and Abstract Expressionism, engaging a larger discourse of contemporary art theory.
Untitled (detail of work in progress), 1999,
cotton, wood, rust, found objects, courtesy of the artist
In a departure from his earlier wall reliefs, Drew's new sculpture is comprised of a single free-standing component measuring ten feet high by twenty-four feet long by three feet wide. The artist constructed the piece from over 20,000 handmade two-inch white cotton paper boxes and open-ended wooden cubes painted black. Drew applied rust to some boxes and soaked others in water to achieve a degree of deterioration, then assembled them together into large, loosely formed yet carefully composed grids. Onto these matrices, Drew attaches found materials, organic stuffs, colorful fabrics, industrial junk, and discarded domestic objects. From a distance, viewers will see bold, abstract patterns and up close will experience a myriad of intricate detail.
Never before exhibited, Drew's drawings are both studies for and meditations on his sculptures. The twenty-five on view relate to the commissioned work and provide a look at the conception and creation of the sculpture. Executed in asphaltum ink and gouache, they are intimate in scale, often measuring only 8 x 10 inches. As such, they act as counterpoints to the monumental three-dimensional work.
Leonardo Drew was organized by the Madison Art Center. The exhibition has received generous funding from Lannan Foundation; the Madison Community Foundation; the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission with additional funds from the Madison Community Foundation and Overture Foundation; The Art League of the Madison Art Center; the Exhibition Initiative Fund; and the Madison Art Center's 1999-2000 Sustaining Benefactors. This exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin.
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