Sketches, Plans, and Proposals

For centuries, artists have used paper to make sketches, jot down ideas, record fleeting impressions, or prepare for large-scale paintings, sculptures, and installations. Works on paper are thus indelibly associated with the artist’s hand as well as his or her imagination, and they are typically described as more instinctive or immediate than “finished” works of art. The prints and drawings in Sketches, Plans, and Proposals conform to but also challenge many of these assumptions. Some of the pieces are indeed sketches for works that were later rendered in other media, but others detail projects so impractical, so idealistic, that they were either never realized or never intended to be realized in the first place. Works by Christo, Alfred Jensen, Gyula Kosice, Lee Lozano, Nam June Paik, César Paternosto, and James Turrell will be featured, among others.