Feature: The Big Picture - Exhibition - Lines of Thought at the Parasol Unit until May 13
Published: 5 April, 2012
The current exhibition at Parasol unit foundation explores the work of 15 contemporary artists from the 1960s to today, whose practice has focused in particular on using line in creatively challenging ways.
With works representing different generations, Lines of Thought demonstrates how the meaning and use of line varies from one artist to another.
Lines – continuous or broken, curved or straight, free-floating or geometric – can define boundaries, divide spaces, create light and shade, or be used for communication. Throughout the history of art, line as a basic element of artistic expression has been used by many artists to explore and express a wealth of feelings, thoughts and ideas.
The apparently simple act of extending a point, by drawing with pen or pencil on paper, has paradoxically made line one of the most powerful forms of artistic expression, yet over time has taken on different meanings and uses relative to the era of its creation.
Once considered to be pure and linear, as in the works of artists Fred Sandback and Anne Truitt, line has in recent years acquired a more complex magnitude and extravagant nature.
Fine examples of this are the elaborate installations by the younger artists Adrian Esparza and Conrad Shawcross and the Indian artist Hemali Bhuta.
Bhuta’s often site-specific installations function both as ephemeral objects and documentation in ways that can seem contradictory.
Her dramatic and impressive installation “Stepping down”, 2010/2012 – pictured above – includes several thousand stalactites that simulate candles and engender a cave-like experience.
• Lines of Thought: Helene Appel, Hemali Bhuta, James Bishop, Raoul De Keyser,Adrian Esparza, Özlem Günyol & Mustafa Kunt, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Jorge Macchi, Nasreen Mohamedi, Fred Sandback, Conrad Shawcross, Anne Truitt, and Richard Tuttle
• Until May 13 at Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, 14 Wharf Road, N1 7RW. Open Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-6 pm; Sunday, noon-5pm. Admission free. Tel: 020 7490 7373,
info@parasol-unit-org, www.parasol-unit.org