Galleries in Paris

Weights & Measures – Sculptors’ Drawings and Sculptures

In 1967 Anne and Jean-Claude Lahumière showed a set of drawings by sculptors in their gallery, then located on Rue d’Aguesseau in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. Forty-seven years later, they are repeating the idea while including more contemporary artists. Sculptural drawings are interesting in the way they reveal the foundations of pure form. They serve as a lab for the sculptor’s research—they are where sculptors envisage the scale and medium of volumes. One drawing often leads to another, so that new forms emerge in the process, as can be seen in the work of Jean-Gabriel Coignet.

There are classic preparatory sketches with annotated details, such as those by Etienne Béothy (1897–1961) and Emile Gilioli (1911–1977), yet there are also finished drawings for anticipated projects, such as one by Jean Gorin (1899–1981) for a project executed in Nancy in 1954, featured on the invitation to this show.

Then there is a parallel practice of drawing that enjoys its own status within a sculptor’s oeuvre. Timo Nasseri, for example, constructs his drawings by exploring mathematical formulas inherited from the Arabic world. Nathalie Delasalle, who sculpts in white, uses paper collage to contend with multiple hues of white, directly attacking form in her cut-outs.  Denis Pondruel, meanwhile, reveals the hidden sides and inner architecture of his concrete cubes through axonometric drawings. And André Stempfel sometimes anticipates the movement of his works through sets of drawings, while at other times he hews their forms in paper cut-outs. Finally, drawing is used poetically by Baudin, a surveyor of time who weighs and measures multiple things in his works.

These are some of the many facets of sculptors’ drawings that visitors to the gallery will be able to discover up through April 30th.