Draftsmen's Congress: Serious Fun

Last Friday night, I skipped out of work (I was so excited, I ran, actually) to join with fellow Urban Sketchers in this collaborative project by Polish artist, Pawel Althamer.

Located on the Bowery, in the New Museum's fourth floor gallery, the installation transforms daily, as group after group of visitors come make their marks here, be it the walls or the floors or the tepee in the middle of the room or right over someone else's existing creation.

Jason and Mark were at the opening when the walls were all white. Now look!

 

Jason modelling the lab coat/butcher's frock/smock provided for all guests.

Everything in this room is covered in paint. And I do mean everything.

Hmmm... the hallway in the adjoining hall, though, is looking mighty pale.

 Juicy colored tempera and watercolors, and brushes in every size. Just like kindergarten.

 Not a bad way to bond.

Moments after I painted this affirmation, other artists came along and added to it.

 Marie-Laure about to get splashy.

After sketching a lovely design, Marie-Laure invited me to splash over it. Here, nothing is sacred.

A distorted panorama shot--but you can see the teepee in the middle.

NYC Urban Sketchers Unite!

Thanks, Richard, for organizing this outing. Oh, and this Wednesday through Sunday (April 23-27), they will be disassembling this exhibit during the museum’s public hours and the painted walls will be cut up and distributed to visitors for free. 

Draftsmen’s Congress 4/18/2014

Friday April 18th from 5:00 to 6:00 PM we will be participating in the exhibition by the polish artist Pawel Althamer. The eshibition is a  collaborative project entitled the "Draftsmen's Congress". The project involves the making of one large collaborative drawing that will take up the entire fourth floor space of the museum. All NYC Urban Sketchers are invited.

 We will meet in the lobby at 4:45 PM

Arrival: When you arrive to the museum you should enter through our main entrance, go to the front desk and announce your arrival. They will know you are coming. All coats/bags should be checked in at the coat check. You will receive entrance tickets and you need to hold on to this ticket in order to exit the 4^th floor and come back up again should you wish to do that at any point. In order to go up to the 4^th floor the whole group needs to be present and so you need to be sure that the whole group arrives at the same time. You cannot bring any food or drinks up to the 4^th floor.

Materials: There will be a great range of materials available to work with and these include: acrylic paint (range of colors), gouache, watercolor, charcoal, charcoal pencils, crayons, oil pastels, colored pencils, chalk, chalk pastels, many kinds of pens and markers. Furthermore we will have a range of brushes and rolls available to work with and a range of different kind and sizes of paper to work on around the large table in the middle of the space. There will be painters coats and suits and shoe covers to wear if needed. You are welcome to bring your own materials but we do not allow any spray cans or other types of cans or any oil based paint.

A few guidelines: We hope that everybody will really enjoy taking part in the project and be mindful of each other in the space as there will always be more people working at the same time. We ask that all materials be returned to our facilitators after use and that you do not take any of these with you when you leave the space. We ask that you only draw and paint on the 4^th floor and not on any other floor of the Museum, the Draftsmen’s Congress is only on the 4^th floor. At 6pm all are asked to leave the space.