Conference: Travelling Lines: Drawing as an Itinerant Practice
took place 22 and 23 September 2011
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| Group discussion with participants of the Travelling Lines Conference, 2011 | From left to right: Artists Tony Cruz, Gilda Mantilla & Raimond Chaves in discussion with The Peripatetic School curator Tanya Barson |
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| From left to right: Artists Mateo Lopez,
Brigida Baltar & Nicolas Paris |
Guest Artist Speaker Ellen Gallagher with Tanya Barson |
Travelling Lines brought together scholars, artists, curators and collectors to create an international forum to consider three key themes: itinerant modes of drawing by Latin America based artists that prioritise investigation and exploration; how the nomadic practices of artists necessitate conceptual and low-key strategies associated with drawing, an especially portable medium; and how itinerant and other modes of drawing circulate within the transnational circuits of the globalised art world. Focusing on one medium, speakers address how visual languages participate in, depend on, and travel across local as well as global territories.
The conference opened up in the evening of 22 September at the Drawing Room. Tanya Barson, International Curator, Tate Modern, gave a talk about the premise of the exhibition, the interest in art from Latin America and the artists work. Christian Rattemeyer, Harvey S. Shipley Miller Associate Curator of Drawings, Museum of Modern Art, New York gave an illuminating talk on curating, collecting and the display of drawings from the Judith Rothschild collection. This was followed by a panel discussion examining the contexts of the museum, university collection and private collection with Kate Brindley (Director, Mima, Middlesbrough) Christian Rattemeyer, (MOMA, New York) Catharine Petitgas (private collector and trustee Tate, Latin American Committee), Joanne Harwood (Director Essex Collection of Art from Latin America (ESCALA) chaired by Mary Doyle, Co-Director, Drawing Room.
The second day at Chelsea College of Art and Design began with a key-note lecture by Moacir dos Anjos, Research Fellow at the Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Recife, Brazil and lead curator of the 29 Sao Paolo Biennale, who spoke about the link between the peripatetic and drawing. In the session Drawing Practices, the artists: Gilda Mantilla & Raimond Chaves, Tony Cruz, Ishmael Randall Weeks discussed their practice with Tanya Barson.
The morning session closed by looking at Transnational Drawing with Catherine Lampert,( independent curator and art historian), Grant Watson, (curator of research programme and publications, inIVA, Advisory Board, Drawing Room) and Christian Rattemeyer chaired by Katherine Stout, (Associate Director, Drawing Room and Curator, Tate Britain). The afternoon sessions began with a discussion about Peripatetic Practices with Pablo León de la Barra,(London-based curator and writer), Moacir dos Anjos, Guy Brett, (art critic, writer and curator), chaired by Isobel Whitelegg (Director of MA Curating at Chelsea College of Art and Design). This was followed by Tanya Barson in conversation with the artist Ellen Gallagher who spoke about her drawing practice and ideas. Isobel led an in-conversation with artists Nicolas Paris, Andre Komatsu, Brigida Baltar, Mateo Lopez and the afternoon closed with a screening of An Uncomfortable Eagerness by Gilda Mantilla and Raimond Chaves.This conference was in collaboration with TrAIN, University of the Arts, London.
Biographies of participants
Moacir dos Anjos, Research Fellow at the Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Recife, Brazil and lead curator of the 29 Sao Paolo Biennale.
Tanya Barson, Curator of International Art at Tate Modern and curator of ‘The Peripatetic School: Itinerant Drawing from Latin America’
Kate Brindley, Director, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (mima) Middlesbrough
Ellen Gallagher is an artist who lives and work in Rotterdam, The Netherlands and New York City whose work is represented in public collections including Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Whitney Museum of American Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Candida Gertler, Co-Director, Outset Contemporary Art Fund
Joanne Harwood is Director of the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America (ESCALA, formerly UECLAA). She has worked with the Collection since 1995 while studying for an MA and PhD in art from Latin America.
Catherine Lampert, independent curator and art historian. She was Director of the Whitechapel Gallery London from 1998 – 2001. Recently she has curated Miquel Barceló for La Caixa, Barcelona and Francis Alÿs, ‘Le temps du Sommeil’ for the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.
Pablo Leon de la Barra, London-based curator and writer
Catherine Petitgas, major collector of Latin American art, member of Latin
American Acquisitions Committee and the International Council at Tate and
Trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery
Christian Rattemeyer, Harvey S. Shipley Miller Associate Curator of Drawings,
Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Katharine Stout, Curator, Tate Britain and Associate Director, Drawing Room, London
Grant Watson, curator and co-ordinator of research programme and publications, inIVA, London
Isobel Whitelegg, Director of MA Curating at Chelsea College of Art and Design. She specializes in the history and theory of modern and contemporary art from Latin America.