The sketchbook as a site of artistic invention, workshop collaboration, and the production and transfer of knowledge

Departing from the recent exhibition Gribouillage / Scarabocchio (Scribbling and Doodling) at the Villa Medici in Rome and the Beaux-Arts in Paris, this session focuses on the sketchbook as a site of artistic invention, workshop collaboration, and the production and transfer of knowledge. It aims to examine how sketchbooks were used by individual artists for experimentation, planning, and exploration, and how they served as a means of collaboration in and beyond workshops. While the sketch sustains its position at the center of a classical take on artistic individuality and autonomy, the medium of the sketchbook lends itself to a more differentiated perspective to better comprehend the material and heteronomous conditions of artistic production.

This panel invites papers that consider sketchbooks as multivalent actors. We encourage studies of non-canonical materials and interdisciplinary approaches that incorporate methods from fields such as art history, history of science, cultural studies, visual studies, and media theory.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Case studies of specific artists and their sketchbooks
• The relationship between sketchbooks and executed works
• Collaborative practices, copying, and the role of sketchbooks in the dissemination of artistic ideas
• The practice of studying from life, observation, and the significance of artists’ sketchbooks in the history of science
• The materiality of sketchbooks and the role of paper production
• The role of sketchbooks in artistic education and training
• The function of sketchbooks in the broader context of visual culture