A Companion to Contemporary Drawing

The first university-level textbook on the power, condition, and expanse of contemporary fine art drawing

A Companion to Contemporary Drawing explores how 20th and 21st century artists have used drawing to understand and comment on the world. Presenting contributions by both theorists and practitioners, this unique textbook considers the place, space, and history of drawing and explores shifts in attitudes towards its practice over the years. Twenty-seven essays discuss how drawing emerges from the mind of the artist to question and reflect upon what they see, feel, and experience.

This book discusses key themes in contemporary drawing practice, addresses the working conditions and context of artists, and considers a wide range of personal, social, and political considerations that influence artistic choices. Topics include the politics of eroticism in South American drawing, anti-capitalist drawing from Eastern Europe, drawing and conceptual art, feminist drawing, and exhibitions that have put drawing practices at the centre of contemporary art. This textbook:

• Demonstrates ways contemporary issues and concerns are addressed through drawing
• Reveals how drawing is used to make powerful social and political statements
• Situates works by contemporary practitioners within the context of their historical moment
• Explores how contemporary art practices utilize drawing as both process and finished artifact
• Shows how concepts of observation, representation, and audience have changed dramatically in the digital era
• Establishes drawing as a mode of thought

Part of the acclaimed Wiley Blackwell Companions to Art History series, A Companion to Contemporary Drawing is a valuable text for students of fine art, art history, and curating, and for practitioners working within contemporary fine art practice.

Kelly Chorpening is the Fine Art Programme Director at Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts, London. She has worked extensively in drawing as an artist, writer, curator and educator within fine art and across disciplines, and in a number of national contexts.

Rebecca Fortnum is Professor of Fine Art at the Royal College of Art, UK. She is the author of Contemporary British Women Artists: In Their Own Words and On Not Knowing: How Artists Think. She has exhibited widely including solo exhibitions at the Freud Museum and the V&A Museum of Childhood in London.