Works on Paper on Fridges is an international survey of artworks made on paper substrate—gouaches, ballpoint pen drawings, oil on cotton rag, collages, prints, charcoal drawings, photograms, rubbings, sketches in colored pencil, oilstick, flashe on cardboard, etc—hung with magnets on identical brand new full size Whirlpool refrigerators temporarily installed in at Hartwig Gallery in New York for the duration of the show.
99 artworks, 66 artists from 33 countries on 22 fridges: Works on Paper on Fridges looks at the many conflicting modalities of the paper artwork: preparatory drawing; site of discovery; fragile, ephemeral thing to be protected; castoff, shy notebook page; primary, time honored support, monument to all that can happen in the space of a single millimeter. The inclusion of domestic appliances identifies the gallery as a site for the consideration of networks of exchange and modulation, and points to the delicate balance of functional systems that create habitability in an urban environment. Using them to display small artworks furthermore speaks to the notion of living with art, and invites participating artists to meditate equally on the relationship between the home, studio, and city, as the one between the mind and the hand.