Kim Conaty, the Whitney Museum’s curator of prints and drawings, explains what led her to organise a show of Asawa’s drawings rather than the wire sculptures for which she is famed
A good student and a profoundly intuitive practitioner, Asawa obsessively explored the paths of seeing through nature, craft, history, material matters (such as paper folding), and drawing styles, including the Greek meander (that is, the classical winding geometric pattern that can continue indefinitely), and performance and dance. As a result, she left behind a highly styled and tightly controlled body of work that soundly situates itself between compulsively wrought craft and delicately conceived fine art.