Talk about artistic license.
A new gallery group exhibition displays how different artists draw maps of the United States from memory. Between 1971 and 1972, Hisachika Takahashi, an artist in New York City, asked 22 others to come up with graphic representations of the United States. The medium was undefined, except for the handmade paper that Takahashi provided. The collection of all 22, along with Takahashi’s notes and archives, is being shown in full for the first time. It is called "From Memory."
Takahashi, a recent transplant to the U.S. from Japan, was interested in how the interstitial memories of his American contemporaries represented their native land—he was struggling for identity in his new home. The collection of maps represents where the artists thought they fit in their nation, with their aesthetic idiosyncrasies defining each as much as their recall and interpretation.
The full list of artists on display includes: Arakawa, Jed Bark, Mel Bochner, Juan Downey, Alex Hay, Jasper Johns, Joseph Kosuth, Jeffrey Lew, Jane Logemann, Brice Marden, Gordon Matta-Clark (Takahashi was a chef in his restaurant, Food), Richard Nonas, Robert Petersen, Robert Rauschenberg (Takahashi served as his gallery assistant), Dorothea Rockburne, James Rosenquist, Keith Sonnier, Hisachika Takahashi, Cy Twombly, Susan Weil, Lawrence Weiner, Robert Whitman, and Don Wyman.
The exhibition will be on display at the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York City between September 13 and October 19.
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[via Hyperallergic]
