The Menil Collection The Menil Collection

Through the Looking Glass: Drawing and Transparency in the 1970s

The Menil Drawing Institute 2021–22 Pre-Doctoral Fellow, Filippo Bosco, delivers a lecture addressing transparency as a material and conceptual device in the drawing practices of the 1970s. The use of transparent and translucent supports like glass, vellum, or tracing paper changes both the habitual perception of lines on a surface and the understanding of what exactly drawing is. A variety of works from American and European artists like Barry Le Va, Dorothea Rockburne, Mario Merz, and Remo Salvadori is articulated in the light of contemporary critical debates, categories of architecture theory, and possible congruences with more recent practices (such as Houston artist Joseph Havel’s work). As a literal breaking through the opacity of the sheet, transparency enigmatically disentangles the performative acts that constitute a drawing and expands its spatial and social dimensions

This program takes place in the Menil Drawing Institute, located at 1412 W. Main St. Further information regarding accessibility and parking can be found here. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Filippo Bosco is a PhD candidate at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy. His research, supervised by Flavio Fergonzi and partly carried out at the Freie Universität Berlin, deals with the primary role of drawing within conceptualist practices of the 1970s, focusing on Italian artists and their international exchanges with Europe and the US. His interests and publications concern Magic Realism, Italian painting of the early 20th century, Pop Art criticism, and the graphic work of Giuseppe Penone. Filippo has presented at the Center for Italian Modern Art in New York and the Drawing Room in London, and he has collaborated with the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Turin and with the Cerruti Collection at the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea.