Wooster St; Greene St

If you think about photography as it’s own unique language, then you can imagine that translating that language into another, say drawing, inevitably results in an interpretation rather than a direct conversion. This, to me, it what makes the group show at The Drawing Center right now so riveting. Drawn from Photography gives you snapshots and news media photography repurposed as intricate, beautiful, haunting drawings. Most of the subject matter has a sociopolitical bent (like Frank Shelby’s exquisite Light Blue Riot), and somehow taking us as viewers one degree further from the original allows us a newfound freedom to think about it. Not to mention the amount of patience and precision this work must take!

Ewan Gibbs works with pencil on graph paper and uses the familiar imagery of tourist attractions to lure you in. Then, once you’re hooked, take a close look at how he builds the image. From afar, you would have never guessed.

Where the draftsmen at The Drawing Center sort of remove you from their source content, Mark Morrisroe’s intimate, raw work puts you right in the heart of his vibrant, dramatic existence. His extraordinary photography, at Artists Space until May, is interesting both for its diary-like revelation and its manipulated form. Morrisroe captured his friends and lovers in such a casual, natural way, yet he often colored, painted and wrote on his prints and tinkered with his negatives.  I’m felt feeling like he’s presenting the truth he wants me to believe, not the whole true. Plus, I’m dying to know more about his tragically short life. Thank goodness for smartphones and Wikipedia! 

For a whole different kind of lunch stop in Café Café for a latte and a delicious sandwich or Ruben’s Empanadas for some truly inspired take-out. Ruben’s has been doing them up right since 1975, and now you can even choose whole-wheat dough!

Ingredients:

Venues: The Drawing Center; Artists Space

Artists: D-L Alvarez, Andrea Bowers, Fernando Bryce, Sam Durant, Ewan Gibbs, Karl Haendel, Richard Forster, Serkan Ozkaya, Emily Prince, Frank Selby, Paul Sietsema, Mary Temple, and Christian Tomaszewski; Mark Morristoe

Streets: Wooster St; Greene St; Broome St

Eats: Café Café; Ruben’s Empanadas 

Map: