The Contemporary End

Founded on the judgment of the eye (giudizio dell’occhio), freehand drawing presupposes ideas of originality and authenticity, whereas the practice of tracing inhabits a minor place in the margins of drawing’s history and is usually perceived as defcient in originality. If we can say that drawing’s concepts and models are indisputably connected with the ways in which culture has shaped them over time, then it follows that any ideas of drawing’s originality and authenticity cannot be a fxed and self-determined fact, but rather as a product of negotiation within a practice signifcantly constrained by the contextual uses of its tradition. Speculating that both tracing and drawing’s utilitarian mechanical means are no longer marginal but now central to contemporary drawing, this paper takes as a point of reference the anecdotal commentary of the 2007 Aldrich Museum ‘press release’1 for Arturo Herrera’s exhibition Castles, Dwarfs, and Happychaps in which a utilitarian approach to drawing is emphasised, fagging up signifcant divergences in respect it’s historical and contemporary regard.