The Sketch: A Promise of Dialogue

Draft, outline, rough copy, diagram, study, or sketch are some of the forms evoking a work in the act of becoming. Although what sets them apart matters little in the context of this issue, what brings them together definitely concerns us. These various modes, which we convene under the term sketch, have a common preparatory function and consequently, a status of incompletion. The history of contemporary art has shown that by giving the creative process a certain autonomy, avant-garde movements have marked the end of the supremacy of the finished work. Even the recent interest in reskilling,1 1  - See Issue 74 of esse, Savoir-faire/Reskilling (Winter 2012). based on revalorizing skills while paying particular attention to the object, does not appear to have cast a shadow on the artistic preoccupation with the work in progress, and all informal practices indicate paths that traverse this preoccupation.

Maintaining its role of first form, the sketch leads to a wide range of strategies and gives rise to new research on the materiality, temporality, and spatiality of a work. To do this, it still takes the traditional route of drawing, painting, and sculpture, and sometimes of new technologies, while also referring to the outline of a movement, the brief posture, or the tenuous attempt to communicate an idea in words. From the English sketch, we get the performative aspect of drawing, that is its connection to theatre and by extension, to dance and performance, as well as to narration and orality, which are expressed in comic books and satire. Therefore, we designed this issue to reflect the abundance of possibilities and deliberately break away from an essentially discipline-based approach to drawing, focusing instead on the creative intention found in the sketch and the fluctuations of its outcomes.