Once reserved for the intimacy of the sheet of paper or the sketchbook, contemporary drawing is spreading and unfolding on a large scale. A simple medium that has become a work of art in its own right, it has changed its format and status. Going beyond the frame and the function that were assigned to it, it explodes and spreads out of the paper and sometimes even out of the wall, in large format. Such is the case with Giuseppe Penone’s Propagazione (Propagation), an expanding drawing that multiplies the lineaments of a fingerprint in Indian ink and felt-tip pen until it covers the entire wall (to be seen in the exhibition devoted to the artist’s graphic work at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France). The same goes for Emmanuel Wüthrich’s Wave, composed of 128 Indian ink washes on paper, presented alongside monumental drawings by 32 current artists in the exhibition XXL – Le Dessin en grand at the Musée Jenisch in Vevey. From the vertiginous mural drawing madein situ with charcoal and water by Ariane Monod to the unstable and immersive landscapes of Anaïs Lelièvre, not forgetting the fragmentary frescoes by Jérôme Zonder or François Réau, all the new potentialities of “installation” or “performance” drawing are deployed there.

XXL – Le Dessin en grand
Musée Jenisch de Vevey (Suisse)
Jusqu’au 27 février
museejenisch.ch

By Stéphanie Dulout