There is no name-dropping in this Kreuzberg exhibition

Art connects people, especially when it is produced by oneself. Around 1,200 works in the exhibition “Anonymous Draftsmen” hang close together on the walls of the Kreuzberg art space in the old Bethanien Hospital. There are landscape drawings, portraits of people, animals and machines as well as graphic structures.

The space between the walls filled with drawings was also densely packed at the opening – with curious people of all ages. The opening looked like a folk festival, as if everyone who had submitted drawings had come to the vernissage and as if they had also brought friends and relatives with them.

“Certainly not everyone who submitted came. There are also many international artists there. But I think that many who live in Berlin are here now,” says Stéphane Bauer, artistic director of the art space, about the rush.

Only the quality counts

Many people pulled out their cell phones. Some to record the arrangement of their pictures, others to remember which works they would like to purchase. Because this exhibition is – very rarely for a municipal gallery – a sales exhibition.

“It’s fitting for the Christmas season. “You can just have fun with the drawings and buy the ones you like as a Christmas present,” explains Bauer. Each drawing costs 250 euros. And on the day of the opening, visitors left with several cardboard covers containing drawings under their arms.

The project was thought up by the illustrator and installation artist Anke Becker. “It started in 2006. That’s when Damien Hirst’s diamond-studded skull was sold. I just came out of art school and thought: ‘This art market is horrible. That will not do.’ “This project came about as a crazy evening idea, back then in my own project room on Prenzlauer Allee,” she says, looking back at the beginning. She soon lost the project room and moved nomadically through other rooms. In 2009, Stéphane Bauer first included the idea in his program at the Kunstraum Kreuzberg.

Selection from 4000 entries

The current edition is huge. There were over 4,000 submissions, says Becker. After several rounds of viewing, the selection was reduced to around 1,200 works on display. Anonymity is maintained. The website is programmed in such a way that Becker can maintain contact with the submitters, but does not find out their identity during the selection process.

“Curating anonymously is great. You can do it in a very relaxed manner and don’t have to say: ‘Oh, that one…'” – here she mentions the name of a prominent artist – and then continues: “‘…I have to take that one now, even if it’s a pretty bad hand is.’” No, it is not the name and artistic biography that determine the selection process, but solely the visual quality. This is quite revolutionary for the art world, which is dominated by names and brands.

With the “Anonymous Draftsmen” you only find out the name when the work has already been sold. Then there is a gap in the wall, and the name that is written on the back of the work – “hopefully always in a legible font,” worries Becker – goes on the empty space on the masonry.

The works themselves show a wide range. Some things seem more like a first work in drawing class. Other lines are more routine. There are also computer graphics and collage. In recent years, Becker has observed an increase in street art and comic works.