Arsenale

Arsenale was a journey through contemporary drawing, illustrating its evolution: from being a “functional” technique used to prepare for or accompany a work of art, in the mid 1990s drawing became established as an art form in its own right. The works on show revealed drawing at its most contemporary – drawings featuring media like photography, photocopies and comic strips, or using unusual printing techniques. Many of the works in the exhibition opened up to literature, architecture and performance. The show also presented the kind of works we traditionally associate with the idea of graphic art, such as etchings and engravings.


The section in Appiano revolved mainly around the international phenomenon of language in art that was the focus of Museion’s acquisition policy for many years. The works presented in the Lanserhaus offered another layer of artistic context for the works by local artists presented in Museion. The works exhibited in Museion also took us through the history of the museum’s collection from the 1990s onwards. The drawings purchased in this period enabled the museum – with limited means – to come into possession of larger, and therefore more representative, groups of works, as well as alleviating the pressing issue of storage space. But above all the exhibition revealed the freshness of the drawing medium, less subject to the pressure to create something “significant”.