News

News

Sunday, 24 March 2013

Anonymous Drawings / Anonyme Zeichner

I've got a drawing being exhibited in this exhibition in Berlin, Germany, but as it's all anonymous I can't tell you which one is mine, so I thought I'd share the ideas behind the exhibition along with some of the works from the online gallery that caught my eye.


Image 130 

 
Image 268

 Image 415

Image 519

Image 584

Here's the link to the online gallery where you can browse and buy drawings for a set price of €150.  http://www.anonyme-zeichner.de/1/online-gallery-shop/

Or if you're in Berlin, then the show is on until 20 April at Kunstverein Tiergarten | Galerie Nord
 
Turmstrasse 75, 10551 Berlin, Germany
opening hours: Sunday March 24, noon - 6 pm
afterwards: Tueday-Saturday 1 pm - 7 pm

Background information 

Anonymous Drawings was founded 2006 by the artist Anke Becker in Berlin, Germany. Since then, more than 5000 artists from all over the world have taken part in the project. More than 10 shows of Anonymous Drawings took place in Berlin and abroad up until today.

The concept
800 selected drawings of international artists will be presented  anonymously in an exhibition. Every exhibition is preceded by an international call for participation on the internet. Everybody can take part: old and young, professional artists or laymen. There are no submission fees and there is no complicated application-procedure. There are no specifications regarding the content of the drawings. The only formal rule: the maximum size of the exhibited drawings is 29,70 - 42,00 cm (A3). 800 works will be selected for the exhibition. The age, biography or gender of the participants will not be requested and do not play any role in the selection: the selection will be made without looking at the names. What counts is the art itself and not the biography.
 
All the drawings are available for a symbolic unit sales-price of 150 Euros each – no matter if they come from established artists or from unknown laymen. For each drawing sold, the artists receive 100 Euros – the rest will be used for the partial financing of the project. Unsold drawings will be archived or returned to the artists. The given unit sales-price should not be seen as a real market price, but as a conceptual place-holder for any conceivable amount of money. The artist's anonymity can only be revealed by a sale: the buyer can then take his or her drawing right off the wall and the empty space left behind will be marked with the artist‘s full name and point of origin.

The idea behind
What is the line between what is and is not art? What is a good drawing? How can one develop a personal definition of value if the sales-prices are all identical? How does one’s own assessment change if there is no information at all about the artist? It is all about the art and not current market-value. With Anonymous Drawings the common rules of the art-market are reversed in an experimental way turned upside down. In this way new space for unprejudiced viewing, judging and purchasing of the exhibited art emerges. Many single pieces of art become one total work of art. Each and every anonymous artist becomes part of a huge community where hierarchies do not exist. Anonymous Drawings is an action against separation, competition and monoculture within the art-market and a tribute to the inexhaustible medium of drawing.