Conversation with Amy Sillman: Drawing in the Continuous Present

About this Video

• Video Title: Conversation with Amy Sillman: Drawing in the Continuous Present
• Channel: The Menil Collection
• Speakers: Toby Camps, Mark Robbins, Amy Sillman
• Duration: 01:24:29

Introduction

This video features a conversation with artist Amy Sillman, focusing on her approach to drawing. The discussion explores drawing as an action, a theory, and a practice, touching upon Sillman's artistic process and her integration of various media, including animation and text. The Menil Collection and the American Academy in Rome collaborated on the event.

Key Takeaways

• Drawing as an Action: Sillman emphasizes drawing as a continuous, evolving process, a "verb" rather than a noun. She showcases diverse drawing techniques through a series of images, highlighting the expansive nature of the medium.
• Drawing as Theory and Practice: The conversation delves into drawing's materialist philosophy, referencing Jean-Luc Nancy's writings. Sillman's approach blends abstraction and figuration, incorporating elements of modernist doubt, tragedy, comedy, and analysis.
• Sillman's Artistic Process: Sillman's work seamlessly integrates drawing, painting, animation, and text. Her projects often involve creating sequences of images, exploring themes of time and humor, and employing a "clunky, weird machine" approach to blend diverse elements. She uses this technique in multiple mediums (video, prints, zines, paintings).
• The Role of the "Diagram": Sillman uses "diagrams" to structure and summarize information, often in a satirical and twisty way. She connects this to the process of classic modernist painting, where artists synthesize memory, visuality, and invented gestures to build an analog world.
• The Importance of Poetry: Sillman emphasizes her love of poetry and its influence on her work. She draws parallels between the immediacy and physicality of poetry and her drawing process, describing it as a form that emerges from the body and breath.