IDEA

The growing interest in the most direct way of recording ideas – drawing, its constant lingering on the prosperous margins of art and expressive presence in its mainstream, require a special focus on the medium. Instead of pushing forward with definitions, whose value and usefulness tend to be anything but permanent, we would like to present existing, contemporary drawing strategies without emphasizing the role of any particular tool or technique. The majority of general public perceives drawing as a familiar phenomenon and a rather private activity. We do not intend to do away with this image, indeed we want to enrich and update it.

Drawing is above all a cognitive instrument and language allowing us to be instantly and permanently placed in an incomplete, multi-layered and non-linear reality. It is a direct way to answer the questions of our relationship with the reality. Drawing as an idea, not only a medium, allows a deeply humanistic expression in the sense of its close proximity to the body, gesture, nature, at the same time remaining open to operations requiring momentum, open space or virtual reflection by means of modern technologies.

The Triennale as a laboratory of Wrocław’s drawing Think Tank concentrates on many aspects of the phenomenon in question. In this year’s edition, which reactivates the idea of an international forum, the curators have decided to explore the numerous strands of the evolutionary line of drawing – from the morphology of things and naturalness of the sign (Two Sticks exhibition), through the performatics of drawing (IMAGINE), power of manifestation and contestation (Arsenal Notebook Gallery), to the ability of reconstruction and deconstruction (Rough Draft). The numerous accompanying exhibitions, meetings and workshops broaden the spectrum of research tools available in laboratories, testing the possibility of updating our images of art, life and how necessary drawing appears to be in all this.

Apart from presenting the most valuable tendencies in the field of broadly understood contemporary drawing, and inspiring creative attitudes within the scope of the medium, the new elements in this year’s edition of the Triennale include:

• The principle of confronting various ways of thinking through the organization of eight exhibitions on the basis of independently run curatorial programmes. The Festival’s common idea unites nearly all the important cultural institutions of the city connected with presenting art.
• The participation of a bigger group of artists representing one cultural area with a particularly interesting visual tradition. Eleven artists from Japan will take part in this edition of the Festival, allowing the audience to reflect on the current function of tradition and national distinctiveness as values formatting artistic imagination.
• The significant participation in TTT events of artists who contributed to the 1960s and ‘70s events as a proposition of their dialogue with artists born after that period.
• The principle of devising exhibitions on the basis of works and projects which were created specifically for the Triennale events.
• The principle of presenting selected works from a distinguished gallery of contemporary art in Poland – this year from the Arsenal collection in Białystok.
• The concept of promoting drawing, group drawing, leaving record, sharing emotions, thoughts, projects in planned workshop cycles, meetings and improvised events.
• Open Call for artists of the emerging generation, in the space of two well-known Wrocław galleries.
• An exhibition of drawing and drawing-related diplomas of Polish higher schools of artistic education.
• Meetings and discussions at the exhibition venues and other meeting points in the city instead of an academic session. Co-operation with small independent collectives active in the public sphere.