The Study: from Creative Subjectivity to Artwork

Pan American Art Projects is very pleased to announce its next show at the PAAP Annex The Study: from Creative Subjectivity to Artwork. The exhibition's purpose is to reflect on the evolution in the role of the artist's study in the creative process, presenting works from the 1940's to the present. This evolution combined with the increasing role of commerce treating art as a commodity have caused the artist's study to evolve in in its functions and uses. The study or maquette has transformed from spontaneous drawing in process to itself being treated as a finished product, signed and presented for the market’s consumption.

These evolving processes, totally natural and necessary, have blurred the boundaries between “study” and “artwork”, consequently changing the role and intent of an artist's study. At times the roles are reversed and a "study" can hold more value and importance than the "finished piece" that arises from it.
This show does not pretend to "discover" anything new - the study is as old as art itself. What has changed is our contemporary natural and systematic practice of inverting the role of a study by signing it and thus elevating it to the category of finished artwork.