It had been mentioned in this platform that drawing is usually considered the underdog of the arts. Considered as a means to an end – often painting or sculpture; in other cases, a document for the construction of buildings –, drawing seldom achieves the status of an artistic medium in itself. When painting, one draws placements and basics annotations; in sculpture, drawing in an essay for gestures and mathematical registry of proportions; in architecture, sections, plans and elevations are drawn as mere promotional, explanatory or documental purpose.

Similarly, and from an historical point of view, when art crosses other subjects such as sciences, drawing assumes pedagogical, academic or studying connotations. We remember for that purpose the sketches and drafts – graphical variances of drawing, according to its execution speed and the visual and composition detail – by Leonardo da Vinci of anatomical studies and dissection of corpses. Nevertheless, notwithstanding its importance, this was a practice that lacked artistic value right at the beginning, sent to the deep-ends of a vault, in a time-consumed notebook filled with accessory information.

In Todas as Histórias [All Histories], Vasco Araújo explores the historical trails of drawing and its utility, building it, though, as an installation or a sculpture. As the curator Pedro Faro mentions, the artist makes an anthology of this discipline, “issuing concepts such as: Delineating. Elevating. Circumscribing. Archiving. Memory. Invisible. Transparency. Display. Focusing. Space. Territory”. Araújo, even if making the installation as the final display, when focusing on the drawing the main subject, subverts its historical subordination elevating it to the same level of all the other arts. In the end, the artist underlines drawing as a legitimate artistic medium.

Todas as Histórias opens on February 3^rd at Fundação Carmona e Costa and ends on March 17^th.