SSPNY Checks Out Grand Re-opening of The Drawing Center Museum in Soho: After Major Multi-Million Dollar Renovations and Expansion, Center Doubles Gallery Space!

Hard to believe that The Drawing Center in Soho, a pioneering downtown gallery dedicated to, of course, drawing, recently celebrated 35 years at their lower Wooster Street location. 35 years! Needless to say, Soho's changed a lot (and I mean a LOT) since 1977, transmogrifying from a largely industrial area, peppered here and there with bars and eateries (Fanelli's Cafe!), underground event spaces and artist collectives, into the high-end, designer-heavy shopping mecca that is it today. And now, with their grand re-opening last week, The Drawing Center has also undergone a dramatic change, though one marked by far more elegance, and even restraint, than some of its neighbors.

Opening its (brand new) doors after a year-long, multi-million dollar expansion and renovation, The Drawing Center not only more than doubled the gallery space within its 19th-century, cast-iron-and-limestone building--there are now three distinct viewing areas on two floors--it also enjoys full museum status. And the new design by Claire Weisz of the New York-based WXY Architecture & Urban Design is terrific: sophisticated, clean, intelligently conceived and executed. I missed the Drawing Center's opening night party because of the snow (thanks for nothing, Nor'Easter Athena), but managed to get over there late last week and was totally impressed by the new digs. This will definitely become part of my regular Soho-art-going rotation.

As for the three inaugural Drawing Center exhibitions, I liked Guillermo Kuitca: Diarios, the largest of the trio and, thus, hung in the front gallery on the main floor, for which the Argentine artist stretched canvases of his "failed paintings" over a round table in his studio and, over the course of several months, added "intentional and accidental doodles, drawings, and recordings on their surfaces". There are 17 of these circular "diarios" in all, and, for most part, they're very cool. I also enjoyed spending time with Colombian artist José Antonio Suárez Londoño's The Notebooks, in the back gallery, which show excerpts from his years-long habit of creating a drawing a day based on whatever he's reading at the time.

Finally, in the downstairs gallery at the newly renovated and now reopened Drawing Center museum, there's a historically-minded exhibition called "In Deed: Certificates of Authenticity in Art” which shows, in various forms of legal documents, how artists have sought to control what happens to their work after its finished--including, in many cases, after it's been sold. It's interesting, if not exactly art. But, good to know: there are three brand-new bathrooms down here too, which are unlikelty to ever see Starbucks-sized lines. Just saying. The Drawing Center is located in Soho, on Wooster Street between Grand and Broome, and is open Wednesday through Sunday from 12:00 noon until 6:00 p.m., and on Thursday until 8:00 p.m. All three of the current shows run through December 9. Lot more info here.