Drawing Now — 6 eme édition — Carrousel du Louvre — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: March 29 → April 1, 2012

Drawing Now 2012 — Éloge du papier Sixième édition consécutive pour ce salon qui, d'année en année, impose son rythme. Indéniablement, le recours au dessin, à sa planéité autant qu'à sa proximité, fait de la visite de ce salon du dessin contemporain 2012 un moment hors du temps, plein d'une douce fluidité.

Drawing Now Paris l Le Salon du Dessin Contemporain is the first contemporary art fair exclusively dedicated to contemporary drawings.

For its 6th edition, the fair will welcome around 82 international galleries in the prestigious Carrousel du Louvre, in the center of Paris. During 4 days, collectors, curators and art-lovers are invited to (re)discover the contemporary artistic scene through the contemporary drawings of well-known and emerging artists.

Drawing is not the exclusive preserve of any particular form of creativity. It is a mean of expression common to all creators, across all disciplines. That is what makes it so specific.

Drawing is not the exclusive preserve of any kind of particular technique. It is the vehicle for a reflection which takes on just the right amount of existence to express itself. That is what characterizes it.

Drawing is not the exclusive preserve of any particular type of culture. It is a universal language shared byall peoples, through their history. That is what gives it its identity.

A work is only a drawing due to its graphical nature. To such an extent that, whatever the medium, the procedure or the format used, provided that it retains this character it must be considered as such. A drawing is an integral and absolute whole, which owes nothing except to itself, its own space, both physical and mental. It alone defines its place, its scope : it alone marks out its boundaries. The drawing signs the artist. It seals him.

Philippe Piguet

Visitors will be offered various viewpoints combining tradition and audacity. Tradition will be provided with the venue, the Carrousel du Louvre, a prestigious setting in the city centre and a now eagerly awaited location for collectors and professionals. Audacity will be upheld by Drawing Now l Hors les murs.

With a focus on 82 artists and more than 400 represented, the Carrousel du Louvre will showcase surprising discoveries both in terms of presentation, quality and diversity of work proposed by galleries.

Drawing Now l Reference will host around 70 well‐established galleries of which over a third is international and will receive two New York galleries for the first time.

Drawing Now l Emergence will take a new dimension and allow a dozen or so galleries established within the past 4 years to present a focus on the work of an artist aged under 40.

Drawing Now l Video will be curated by the Show’s team with the support of Brett Littman director of the Drawing Center New York who will also be part of the awards jury.

Drawing Talks : For the first time, a programme of encounters based on contemporary drawing will give artists, collectors of all ages, institutuons and galleries the opportunity to share their experience and networks.

At the heart of the exhibition, Catherine Millet, art critic and founder of Art Press, has been given free rein to reveal her Imaginary Museum of Contemporary Drawing.

The Drawing Now Award for contemporary design will be awarded for the second year to an artist aged under 50 focused on a stand. It is awarded by the Fonds de dotation pour le Dessin Contemporain and is supported by SOFERIM.


At 17 rue Richelieu, 5 minutes from the Carrousel du Louvre, Drawing Now l Hors les murs will be dedicated to experiments in contemporary drawing.

Two storeys of a building will be transformed by artists’ interventions on the walls, floor, in projections and even on the façade, in a giant contemporary drawing laboratory.