Archive: not just an image, but a whole world
He had “not just a picture, but a whole world” in front of him, Émile realised as he looked at a puzzling drawing by his dead friend Édouard. In the graphic narrative by the comic-book artist Marc-Antoine Mathieu the protagonist can repeatedly look further into the drawing and constantly discover new scenes and details within it.*
The idea of the glance at a drawing that opens up new aspects every time it is looked at, that holds an element of change within it, accompanies this exhibition and links the activities of the artists invited. They question the medium of drawing about its possibilities and limits – a medium that has appeared in every epoch of art history and was made to be used in ever new ways.
Armed with the knowledge about the formal, process-oriented approaches of conceptual drawing, the artists venture into a pictorial and narrative reference to the “world”. The drawings themselves become the means of communication, whether between the artists and the observers or to other media, such as song, performance, sculpture or film.
Curated by: Julia Kläring
* Die Zeichnung [The Drawing], Marc-Antoine Mathieu, 2001, Reprodukt.
