Amarillo Biennial 600: Drawing, the Amarillo Museum of Art’s first competitive show in more than a decade, is open for the summer of 2005.

The show includes 50 works by 29 different artists. All the artists are from within a 600 mile radius of Amarillo: from Lardeo to the south, Phoenix to the west; Little Rock to the east; and North Platte, Neb., to the north.

The show runs through August 28, 2005. Is it sponsored by the Hastings Entertainment Corporation and the Amarillo Area Foundation. The Amarillo Museum of Art (AMOA) is located on the campus of Amarillo College. The museum is open Tuesday- Friday from 10-5 and Saturday and Sunday from 1-5. On Thursday evening it is open until 9 pm and it is closed on Monday. Admission is free.

Curating the show is James Elaine, currently the curator of the Hammer Project Series at the Armand Hammer Museum at the University of California - Los Angeles. Before that, he was curator of the Drawing Center in New York City.

"This guy is hot," Tom Toperzer, executive director of the AMOA, said. "The Hammer Museum is one of the hottest museums of contemporary art in the country."

Though the title of the exhibition indicates that it's limited to drawing, Toperzer happily refused to limit it further than that.

"In the prospectus, I did not include a definition of drawing. I did that on purpose," he said. "The idea is that the edges of the art world are disappearing. I wanted the artists to decide if what they're doing is a drawing,"

"I like that idea of just letting it happen," Torperzer said.

Artists selected for the show include John Adelman, Denton, TX; Helmut Barnett, Austin, TX; Kenneth Beasley, Houston, TX; Jane Ellen Burke, Taos, NM, Callyann Casteel, Kansas City, KS; Chad Colby, Durango, CO; Michael Cross, Mesquite, TX; Michael Diaz, Sante Fe, NM; J. Derrick Durham, San Antonio, TX; Corey Escoto, Amarillo, TX; Christopher Fariss, Denton, TX; Joey Fauerso, San Antonio, TX; Garland Fielder, Denton, TX; Jason Gaspar, Denton, TX; and Eric C. Gibbons, Austin, TX.

Also included are Carole Greer, San Marcos, TX; Alma Haertlein, Laredo, TX; Marsha Harris, Houston, TX; Laura Lark, Houston, TX; David Leigh, Albuquerque, NM; Lisa Nersesova, Denton, TX; Denny Pickett, Grunger, TX; Amy Reidel, Abiquiu, NM; Eric Schnell, Galveston, TX; Sean Semones, Kansas City, MO; Sandra Chia-Ying Shen, Denton, TX; Kari Stewart, Denton, TX; Michael Velliquette, San Antonio, TX and Monica Vidal, Houston, TX.

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