The One Lab

Remember those long afternoons spent on the sofa during family visits, until you discovered that you could draw wonderful patterns and lines in the plush fabric of the cushions by applying a little pressure with your index finger...
Based on this very idea—which Marie from our KinderKunstLabor team remembers from her own childhood—the left wall is now completely covered with a bright blue-green velour fabric. Draw, press, scratch, scrunch up, make lines, blotches, and dots. You can also leave marks with objects. You can erase the shapes at any time with a squeegee.

But there’s more: in front of the windows are three wooden boxes. One of these is a light box with sand. Above it hangs a camera that projects your drawing live onto the right wall of the lab. The second is a light box where you can experiment with transparencies. The third is a magic box that you can paint on with sticks and fingers—without any paint at all — on layers of fragrant beeswax and parchment paper. Here you can also erase everything at any time with a squeegee.

Mona Jas

Further thoughts

Drawing begins by applying marks to a surface. These marks form a linear structure that communicates a certain expression. What emerges is a “dense description” – not with words, but with points, smudges, lines, surface areas, and space, the basic elements of drawing.
“Every child picks up a pencil and draws,” even before learning to write, noted Walter Koschatzky, director of the Albertina Prints and Drawings Collection in Vienna until 1984. He studied drawing systematically, examining what it is, its characteristics, qualities, challenges, and the kinds of interest it can awaken.
The second floor of the KinderKunstLabor features a variety of new—and old—implements, devices, and materials for drawing and painting, inspired by art history and the natural sciences. This newly configured assortment encourages visitors to build on their experiences of the Shadow Catcher exhibition, test out their own ideas, work artistically, or simply play!
Further reading
Geertz, Clifford (1987), Dichte Beschreibung. Beiträge zum Verstehen kultureller Systeme, Berlin: suhrkamp.

Koschatzky, Walter (1999), Die Kunst der Zeichnung, Munich: dtv.

Wehlte, Kurt (2010), Werkstoffe und Techniken der Malerei, Munich: Christophorus.