
pen and ink, masking tape, 26″ x 17½”.
COURTESY NAHMAD CONTEMPORARY, NEW YORK
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COURTESY NAHMAD CONTEMPORARY, NEW YORK
The works on paper lined the gallery walls like an entourage of infatuated fans on the verge of a nervous breakdown, twitchy with electricity, their excitement contagious. The drawings’ overall compositions oscillate between the abstract and a sense of the organic and the animate—like structures in the process of coalescing, disintegrating, or engaging in both simultaneously. Four sheets of taped-together, lushly prepared linen paper constituted the format of the works throughout, reprising the additive nature of Chamberlain’s process. The grounds are tinged warm and cool, and little twists of color that emerge sparingly from the tangle of black lines were also keyed to the sculpture and its shining tones. Frank’s drawings offer many pleasures, not the least of them their frenetic, frazzled beauty and here, the unexpected but terrific pairing with Chamberlain—a mutual crush, you might say.
A version of this story originally appeared in the October 2014 issue of ARTnews on page 116.