Exhibit The Drawing: the library model.

I thought over the underlying concept and the possible installation idea of the exhibition in Wimbledon Space.

The Drawing project is growing as a collection of documentation: papers, photocopies, emails, photographies, references, books, drawings, audio recordings, maps, this very space where I am writing now, etc. The organized record of all these data, object and ephemera - that we could call The Drawing Archive - will be exhibited in the gallery space. The idea is to make this material useful, usable. An archive in the exhibition space that can be consulted by the audience.

For this reason, I recall here the idea of museum elaborated by Jean Leering (1934-2005). In his words:

"I wrote an article in 1999 on how the museum could learn form the public library. The public library asks its users about what they are interested in, which is already a lot more than museums do. It is professional in that way. It is not the public taste that determines the content of the library - it needs to be done throughly by professionals. But the public knows that the library is there for its use".*

To drawn a inference form this passage, I think that The Drawing Archive in the exhibition should work as a library, in the sense that it should be open to the vary use from its audience, at disposal of the public.

Michele Drascek

*  Obrist H.U. (2008) A Brief History of Curating. Zurich, Dijon: JRP/Ringier, Les Presses du reél, p.76.
   From the point of view of the structure and function of the museum, Leering concludes with an   
   historic and sociologic remark: "If you compare the history of the public library with the history of
   the museums, it is evident that museums have come far more from the Third Estate of the
   population (the leading Estate after the French Revolution), than from the idea that we have to
   educate a Fourth Estate".
  

Ausstellungsmacher

The Drawing is a project in which, as a group and as individuals, we are playing different roles. All the roles are essential. All roles are inevitable. The project, as a process, demand commitment in all the roles that we are playing. I have thought about that and about the Harald Szeemann (1933-2005) corresponding idea of Ausstellungsmacher, that is to say "the one who puts on an exhibition".



Harald Szeemann archive.

The Szeemann definition of Ausstellungsmacher corresponds to a list of functions, namely manager, administrator, conservator, financier, diplomat, amateur, author of different kind of texts, librarian, archivist and so on.

Hans Ulrich Obrist expands and adds this definition applying other functions, such as communicator, researcher, transporter and guard.

The Drawing project evolves within this idea: change and shift function so to play different roles (useful to the achievement of the final result). In this context, experiencing functions is equivalent to develop several professional skills.

Moreover, this complex process creates an heterogeneous ammount of documentation that will constitute, as well, an heterogeneous archive. The archive, as evidence of the process, will be part of the final exhibition.

Michele Drascek