Graphologhy
Essex University Gallery, Essex (UK), 10.01.-11.03.2012
Curator: Edwin Carels

With works by William Anastasi, Fiona Banner, Pierre Bismuth, Line Boogaerts, Stefan Brüggeman, Jerry Galle, Mekhitar Garabedian, Frank & Lilian Gilbreth, Dean Hughes, Wim Janssen, Julien Maire, Matt Mullican, Dominique Somers.

Graphology explores drawing created through the interaction of man and machine. Tracing a line from Surrealist automatism to automation, the artists in this show focus on the human hand as a seismograph of inner life. The machine mediates and makes its mark, yet there is a palpable human presence to all the works on show; from the capturing of Sigmund Freud’s gesticulations by Pierre Bismuth’s light drawings, to Fiona Banner’s focus on the frustrations of language through her re-constructed typewriter, or Stefan Brüggemann’s defiant blotting out of neon lettering that demands ‘Make Me See’.
Embracing varying interpretations of the word “graph”, Graphology investigates the ways in which drawing intersects with film, photography, typography and computer graphics and spans the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. It explores the techniques that translate direct experience into different forms of systematised representations, between trace and sign, between writing and drawing. Artworks include segments of Man Ray’s 1923 film le retour á la raison are laid out in light boxes across the gallery floor, Brian O’Doherty’s tiny graph
of Marcel Duchamp’s heartbeat sits relic-like in a quiet corner, while Anna Barham’s playful, poetic anagrams digitally morph across a screen.
Graphology is a project initiated by MUHKA (Antwerp) and has been produced in collaboration with Drawing Room, London.