The Drawing Lab
A place of production and experimentation
7 years
15 production grants
5 exhibitions Drawing Now Prize
85 artists presented
12 projects In between
15 catalogs published
1 artist residency
+ 50,000 visitors
Founded by Christine Phal in 2017 on a philanthropic model, Drawing Lab is a 150m2 experimental and exhibition space entirely dedicated to promoting contemporary drawing. By presenting 3 exhibitions per year, it aims above all to be a place of dissemination of drawing in all its forms, giving the opportunity to artists to bring drawing out of the sheet and explore all its facets.
Each year the Drawing Lab, run by the Drawing Projects & Friends Association, awards its "Drawing Lab Project" grant of 20,000 euros (excl. VAT) for the production and realization of an exhibition to a curator/artist duo from France or living in France. In addition to the production of exhibitions, the Drawing Lab ensures communication, dissemination, reception of the public, cultural mediation, publication of a catalogue and the organization of satellite events around the exhibition.
The Drawing Lab also hosts the exhibition of the winning artist of the Drawing Now Prize, awarded during Drawing Now Paris, the contemporary art fair. The winning artist receives an endowment of 5,000 euros, as well as 10,000 euros in production support for an exhibition at the art center. A monographic catalog is also published for the occasion.
Located on level -1 of the Drawing Hotel, the Drawing Lab is open daily for free. The vocation of the place is to ensure the dissemination of contemporary drawing to all audiences.
The Association Drawing Projects & Friends
Promote contemporary drawing and support artists
The Association Drawing Projects & Friends is a non-profit association of law 1901 intended to facilitate and promote all expressions mainly around contemporary drawing.
Friends for:
— Federate a society of friends made up of amateurs, collectors and enthusiasts of contemporary drawing;
— Animate through a cultural program the society of friends (visits to workshops, privileged visits to exhibitions, meetings with artists);
— Support the artistic projects defended by the association;
— Economically support the realization of projects with artists (exhibitions, editions, residencies, productions and meetings).
Projects for:
— Accompany and help artists in the research and development of their projects;
— To disseminate and promote the work of artists through public or private events;
— Manage an exhibition space open free of charge to the public;
— Animate a cultural program (workshops for children, mediation, visits, meetings and events);
— Design and realize artist residencies.
The team
Christine Phal
Leena szewc
Dalia Bahbou
Art on every floor
A space on level -1 of the Drawing Hotel
Drawing Lab Paris is located at the lower level of Drawing Hotel, founded by Carine Tissot. Unlike the so-called "arty" hotels, the hotel's vocation is to highlight the work of contemporary artists as a "total" work of art: five artists have been selected by Carine Tissot, the director, to appropriate the floors of the establishment.
The corridors of each floor were entrusted to them on the model of the carte blanche and the rooms are then declined according to the construction, creation and originality desired by each of them. Each floor is therefore unique.
Ideally located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, near the Comédie Française, the Louvre Museum and the Decorative Arts Museum, the hotel and the art center benefit from this artistic proximity.
The Dshop
A shop dedicated to creation
Link between the Drawing Lab and the Drawing Hotel, the D. SHOP is the reference shop for contemporary drawing and is located on the ground floor of 17, rue de Richelieu.
The bookstore offers many works dedicated to contemporary drawing in French and English: amateurs will always find something to satisfy their curiosity.
This shop dedicated to drawing has a stationery part, bookstore, and also offers original objects and artists' jewelry.
A whole part of the shop is devoted to children and to learning to draw. Finally, to highlight the original work carried out by each artist on the floors of the Drawing Hotel, Drawing Shop publishes objects imagined by each of them.
The Drawing Society
Committed throughout the year to defend contemporary drawing, the mother-daughter duo Christine Phal and Carine Tissot created the Drawing Society to respond to their desire to federate around them a community of art lovers, professionals and curious people wishing to support contemporary creation.
Since September 2021, the Drawing Society brings together the different entities Drawing Now Art Fair, Drawing Lab, Drawing on Demand, Drawing Edition, Drawing Hotel and Drawing House. These activities have as their epicenter the same passion: contemporary drawing. This new step translates into a new visual identity. Thus, the Drawing Society is deployed around two axes: the first exclusively dedicated to the deployment of artistic activities, the second develops hotel activities with a collection of hotels around contemporary drawing.
Thus, throughout the year, the art and hotel departments make Paris vibrate to the rhythm of contemporary drawing!
Drawing Now Paris is the first contemporary art fair in Europe dedicated exclusively to drawing. Every year in March, it hosts more than 70 international galleries at the Carreau du Temple in Paris. These galleries present more than 300 artists and nearly 2,000 works, representative of the diversity of drawing from the last 50 years to today. Collectors and art lovers are invited to discover the works of emerging and more established artists.
Since the first edition, the selection of galleries exhibiting at Drawing Now Paris has been carried out by an independent committee - with no staff members or galleries - made up of professionals in the fields of contemporary art and contemporary drawing. Joana P.R. Neves, appointed artistic director since 2018, brings together different personalities to choose the projects that make the success of the fair.
The Drawing Now Prize, created in 2011, allows to support an artist and to salute the work of his gallery, with an endowment of 5,000 euros, a production aid of 10,000 euros, a 3-month exhibition at the Drawing Lab and the publication of a monographic catalogue.
Photo credits: Drawing Now Paris © Grégoire Avenue / Coolhuntparis
The Printemps du dessin is launched at the end of March on the occasion of the Drawing Now Art Fair and lasts until June. The event brings together drawing exhibitions that take place in institutions or art centers and all actions such as workshops, workshops, conferences and meetings between the artist and the public. Thus the drawing medium in all its forms allows different audiences to be as close as possible to artists and creation.
In 2024, 75 structures took part in the 7th edition of the Printemps du dessin. The event takes place throughout the country thanks to the partnership with Drawing Now Art Fair, the Centre des monuments nationaux (Cmn), the Association de Développement et de Recherche sur les Artothèques (Adra), Réseau documents d'artistes and the institutions grouped in Amiens around the Frac Picardie. The Printemps du dessin is supported by the Ministry of Culture.
Photo credit: Printemps du dessin © KIBLIND
The Drawing Hotels Collection is a collection of hotels around contemporary design directed by Carine Tissot. It consists of the Drawing Hotel (4* boutique hotel with 48 rooms in the 1st arrondissement in Paris) and the Drawing House (4* hotel with 143 rooms in the 14th arrondissement in Paris).
The Drawing Hotel, the eldest of the Drawing Hotels Collection, is also home to the
Drawing
Lab, the first private art centre dedicated to contemporary drawing. Located at 17 rue de Richelieu in the 1st arrondissement in Paris, the Drawing Hotel is a unique destination designed as an invitation to discover contemporary drawing.
The Drawing House is the latest establishment in the
Drawing
Hotels Collection, a precursor of tomorrow's hotel industry: committed and thematic, entirely at the service of uses. The Drawing House is an inspiring hotel on a human scale entirely dedicated to contemporary drawing located just a few steps from the Gare Montparnasse. Thus, the hotel - located at 21 rue Vercingetorix in the 14th arrondissement in Paris - participates in the dynamic of rebirth of this district, once the traditional epicenter of Parisian artistic life.
Photo credit: View of the Drawing House © Gaelle Le Boulicaut