Trisha Brown's Performative Drawings Merge Dance and Abstraction at Sikkema Jenkins

Trisha Brown's exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York, running from December 9, 2011, to January 25, 2012, showcased her performative drawings from the 'It's a Draw' series. These large-scale works on paper, created while Brown danced with pastels or charcoal in her hands or feet, record her movements and evoke comparisons to Cy Twombly's abstract marks. The drawings, displayed vertically on gallery walls at 530 West 22 Street, capture the memory of dance performances, merging physical activity with the abstract expressionist tradition of the New York School. Brown, age 75 at the time, drew from a career influenced by collaborations with Robert Rauschenberg and Gordon Matta-Clark, gaining international acclaim for athletic and humorous choreography. The works, such as Untitled (London), 2003, and Untitled (Montpellier), 2002, feature squiggles and smudges that pin down real-time motion, creating a tension between their origins in dance and their independent aesthetic life. This duality highlights Brown's triumph in both dance and visual art, with the drawings' integrity rooted in bodily perception rather than conscious thought. The exhibition underscores how simple concepts of registering motion can yield complex aesthetics, resonating with ideas akin to those of John Cage.