talks and performances
SATURDAY, MARCH 28
2:30 pm - Lise terdjman - body letters #2
Multidisciplinary artist and researcher Lise Terdjman presents her performance Body letters #2 from the series "From my head to my feets by my hands", premiering in Copenhagen in 2021. Body letters #2 is both a drawn score and an alphabet book, articulating the letter with the gesture of tracing and the movement of the body. The performance puts into action this score inhabited by the history of modern dance, with references to Mary Wygman and Valeska Gert. This series of drawings condenses a repertoire of forms ranging from writing to figures, in an anthropometric relationship to the artist's body. For Lise Terdjman, the gesture of tracing becomes a critical tool for re-reading the history of art and modern dance. The artist interprets the letters drawn by the audience, like a jazz score at a given moment, between improvisation and transcription, linking language and body movement in space.
Multidisciplinary artist and researcher Lise Terdjman uses drawing as a critical tool, exploring its porosity with other disciplines. Her practice combines installation, ceramics, photography and performance, questioning the boundaries between media and knowledge. Her work, at once poetic and analytical, questions the processes of creating and receiving art. She has collaborated with institutions such as the Musée de Picardie (2025-2026), the Louvre (2004-2005) and the Musée Cognacq-Jay, and has exhibited in France (Poush, 2023; Beauvais, 2016) and abroad (Copenhagen, 2021), including in the collection of the New Carlsberg Foundation.
4pm - artist talk - NÙ barreto
Moderator: Joana P. R. Neves (show artistic director)
Guest: Manuel Barreto
Moderated by Joana P.R. Neves, this discussion focuses on the work of artist Nú Barreto. Born in 1966 in São Domingos (Guinea-Bissau), Nú Barreto has lived and worked in Paris since 1989. A graduate of the École Nationale des Métiers de l'Image des Gobelins (Paris, France), he has forged his own artistic language and developed a political and multidisciplinary practice in which drawing plays an important role. Nú Barreto has established himself as one of the most prominent artists in contemporary African art, for whom drawing is both a diary and a mental map.
Language: French
Joana P. R. NEVES
Thierry Caron
NÙ BARRETO
5:30 p.m. - Drawing THINK TANK
Moderator: Joana P. R. Neves (show artistic director)
Guests: Isabel Seligman (British MuseumLondon, United Kingdom) and Bige Orer (Curator independent, Istanbul, Turkey and London, United Kingdom)
In the run-up to Drawing Now's 20th anniversary in 2027, a Drawing Think Tank is being planned with contemporary art professionals coming to discuss and share what contemporary drawing represents in their institution, region or even country. How is it perceived by an independent curator and an institution? How is it practiced and collected in contexts as different as Portugal and Turkey, Porto and Istanbul?
Language: English
Joana R. P. Neves
Photo Beryl Libault
Isabel Seligman
Muhsin Akgun IKSV
Bige Orer
7:30 pm - François Morelli - À bout portant
À Bout portant is a three-stage drawing performance premiering during Drawing Now. In addition to an assortment of drawing media, tools and techniques, Morelli is assisted by his Belt Heads. Made from used belts, these sculptural prostheses have been both the subjects and objects of his intersectional artistic practice for over twenty-five years. Working horizontally directly on the floor on large sheets of paper, gestures of embodied drawing spread over time onto adjacent walls. Enigmatic and strange in nature, the work is based on an improvised approach to movement and the creation of traces. Who draws what... and why? Sometimes narrative, the work remains conceptual while exploring various types of physical and psychological constraints.
"My works, whether two- or three-dimensional, performative or installation-based, claim to be hybrid, heterogeneous and iconoclastic. They are also part of the DIY tradition, making use of misappropriated objects and materials. The Belt Heads are made from old, salvaged belts, riveted and knotted. Fitted with a glove inside, they operate like puppets, coming to life when manipulated. They transform and change their user. These heads are part of my interest in the human figure in sculpture and the use of prostheses in performance. After discovering that Belt Heads can hold a paintbrush with their mouths, they began drawing at exhibitions and performances, but also in the studio." - François Morelli
A major figure in Canadian visual and performance art, François Morelli is recognized as one of the pioneers of relational art. His multidisciplinary practice, which encompasses drawing, printmaking, installation, performance, sculpture and painting, questions the status of the object and the conditions of perception of the work. His work explores notions of passage, circulation and transformation, where the work often becomes the trace of an action or intervention, inscribing in space and time the relationships between the artist, society, individuals and objects. François Morelli lives and works in Montreal.