Gagosian Rome presents an exhibition of large-scale recent drawings by Albert Oehlen, following an exhibition of paintings at Gagosian New York earlier this year. For Oehlen, the practice of drawing, like painting, is a subject in itself. Considering its natural expressionistic requirements and conditions, he reflects on the mark and its inverse, counteracting the gestural intuitiveness that is intrinsic to the act with an artificiality that he contrives according to parameters known only to himself.

Using elemental charcoal as his only tool, he applies the line vigorously, sometimes doubling on his own trace, smudging the medium, or completely erasing it in parts. Eventually the composition is fixed on the broad expanse of paper. These large works have a raw elegance, composed of seemingly informal gestures—bold, sweeping lines, smudges, and swipes — as well as sometimes self-consciously awkward capitulations. Nothing coheres in a way that could be said to have substantive narrative dimension or pictorial legibility, except for visible stops and starts that prod the limits of content.

The resulting untitled drawings are thus the opposite of pure sensation, seemingly aleatory while highly constructed. It is in this formal paradox or subterfuge of effect that the depth of content resides.

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Above – Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 2012. Courtesy: Gagosian Gallery. Photo: Stefan Altenburger

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Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 2012. Courtesy: Gagosian Gallery. Photo: Stefan Altenburger

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 2012. Courtesy: Gagosian Gallery. Photo: Stefan Altenburger