Unica Zürn: Dark Spring will present approximately 50 ink and watercolor works on paper by the late German artist and writer Unica Zürn, spanning from the early 1950s until her tragic suicide in 1970. A noted poet and novelist, Zürn produced numerous expressionistic short stories that were published in German newspapers throughout the 1950s before moving to Paris with German Surrealist artist, Hans Bellmer, who would be her partner and collaborator until her death. Zürn began producing paintings and drawings related to her Surrealist-influenced literary work while living in Paris, becoming acquainted with many artists in the Surrealist circle, including André Breton, Max Ernst, Man Ray, and Marcel Duchamp. Part whimsical cartoons, part intricate portraits, Zürn’s chimerical fantasies make for drawings that are deeply revelatory yet playfully imaginative. Curated by João Ribas.

Above: Unica Zürn, Untitled (detail), 1961. Ink on paper, 12 3/8 x 9 1/4 inches. Courtesy of Ubu Gallery, New York & Galerie Berinson, Berlin. © Brinkmann & Bose Publisher, Berlin.

FAX will invite a multi-generational group of artists, architects, designers, filmmakers, and thinkers to conceive of the fax machine as a drawing tool. Participants will transmit fax-based work via the museum’s working fax line throughout the duration of the exhibition. The accumulation of information, errors of transmission, junk faxes, “fax lore,” as well as drawings and text – some seminal examples of early fax art – will create an exhibition concerned with reproduction, obsolescence, distribution and mediation. Curated by João Ribas. This exhibition is co-organized by The Drawing Center, New York, and iCI (Independent Curators International), New York, and circulated by iCI.

Above: Matt Sheridan Smith, Untitled (contrast test) (detail), 2008. Black and white inkjet print, 8 1/2 x 11 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Lisa Cooley Fine Art.