Wasteland marks the fifth iteration of Open Sessions, a six-part exhibition program presented between October 2018 and January 2020 at The Drawing Center. Organized by curators Rosario Güiraldes and Lisa Sigal, Open Sessions fosters a dynamic, ever-evolving dialogue with new drawing practices and practitioners, exhibiting and contextualizing the work of early career artists who explore the nature of drawing in its many manifestations through conversation, public programs, and thematic group exhibitions.
Featuring works by Esteban Cabeza de Baca, Crystal Z Campbell, Theodore Darst, Jonathan Ehrenberg, Young Joo Lee, Omid Shekari, and Tariku Shiferaw, Wasteland explores image production as an excessive physiological and psychological stimulus. The artists speculate on how digital media, virtual borders, surveillance, and violence impacts our perception, presenting artworks that include a fragmented revolver cast in body parts; animations of abstract landscapes along international borders; minimalist drawings that reflect distortions of the body; and images that depict an anonymous woman relaxing in the grass before the Tulsa race massacre in 1921.
