John Morris
Drawings for the Austrian School

September 5 – October 5, 2002
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 5, 6-8 PM

D’Amelio Terras is pleased to present Drawings for the Austrian School, an exhibition of over one hundred new drawings by gallery artist John Morris. The drawings are compositionally complex, often featuring built-up surfaces of wax crayon, acrylic, ink, graphite, watercolor, gesso and ballpoint pen. The new drawings represent an evolution of Morris’ intricate, intuitive style. They are looser than earlier works, with drips and spatters often animating the surface, and involve darker marks and thicker textures.

The exhibition title comes from Morris’ interest in the early 20th century Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, a one time Austrian Minister of Finance, bank director, and economics professor who taught in Europe and at Harvard University. He is considered the founder of “evolutionary economics.” One of his most well-known economic terms is “creative destruction,” which states that entrepreneurs with new ideas must destroy business models and practices that came before them in order to stimulate economic change. Many of Morris’ earlier drawings are dedicated to technology companies that no longer exist, having been incorporated into larger organizations or made obsolete by changes in the market, exemplifying Schumpeter’s process. The drawings in the exhibition reference these theories, layering together repetitive motifs that subtly mutate within and across individual works.

John Morris recently presented a solo exhibition at works on paper, inc. in Los Angeles. Future exhibitions include a solo exhibition at Anthony Meier Fine Arts in San Francisco during February 2003. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Queens Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He lives and works in Queens.