DRAWING ROOM CONFESSIONS
IN CONVERSATION WITH YOU
June 2011 — London
YOU What is Drawing Room Confessions?

DRAWING ROOM CONFESSIONS Drawing Room Confessions is a new printed journal named after a parlour game played by Marcel Proust, the Surrealists and others. It is made of words and exchanges, with no images.Six different sections (The Egoist, The Blind Man, Two to Tango, Ekphrasis, Time Line and La Madeleine) comprise the Rules of the Game, which are the same in each issue. What changes are the players, or interviewers, who open each round of conversation with the featured artist and who come from a wide range of fields.

YOU How many artists are featured in each issue?

DRAWING ROOM CONFESSIONS Only one. Our aim in each issue is to sketch the portrait of an artist at a particular moment in time.

YOU Who are the latest players?

DRAWING ROOM CONFESSIONS Miriam Cahn in Issue #3 and David Lamelas in Issue #4.

YOU Can you explain the game? What, for instance, is the Egoist?

DRAWING ROOM CONFESSIONS The Egoist is a conversation with someone selected by the player. Miriam Cahn chose the artist René Pulfer; David Lamelas, the theatre director David Gothard.

YOU What is The Blind Man?

DRAWING ROOM CONFESSIONS The Blind Man is an exchange with an individual whose identity is concealed from the artist. We can now safely reveal that the Blind Men in Issues #3 and #4 are the art historian Griselda Pollock and the philosopher Robrecht Vanderbeeken, respectively.

YOU What is Two to Tango?

DRAWING ROOM CONFESSIONS As in a tango, certain activities cannot be performed on one’s own. Two to Tango is a partnering arranged by the editors to discuss the process of artistic creation. For the current issues, Miriam Cahn and David Lamelas took to the floor with the scientist Andreas Osterwalder and the artist Céline Condorelli.

YOU I noticed Issue #4 has an extra section. What is the Double Dealer?

DRAWING ROOM CONFESSIONS From time to time, the serendipitous Double Dealer will enter the game to complete the portrait. The artist Gerard Hemsworth, who chats with Lamelas about their long friendship, is the first Double Dealer to appear in Drawing Room Confessions.

YOU What is Ekphrasis?

DRAWING ROOM CONFESSIONS Ekphasis is a Greek scholastic exercise, ‘a verbal representation of a visual representation’. Here it is the artist’s direct intervention into the journal: an image with no image.

YOU And For the Time Being?

DRAWING ROOM CONFESSIONS It is a timeline but not a CV. The player selects the defining moments—personal, historical, and cultural—that have marked how he or she thinks and lives.

YOU What is La Madeleine?

DRAWING ROOM CONFESSIONS Each issue ends with the player answering a fixed questionnaire based on the original game of Drawing Room Confessions.

YOU Who are you?

DRAWING ROOM CONFESSIONS We are a team: Vincent Honoré, Manuela Ribadeneira, Michèle Smith and Åbäke. We discuss, we choose the artists, we find the interviewers, we disagree, we talk, and we work together on all aspects of the journal. Vincent Honoré and Manuela Ribadeneira are more specifically dedicated to the selection of players, editing and footnoting the content. Michèle Smith to the editing and copy-editing of the texts, and Åbäke to the design and the identity of Drawing Room Confessions.

YOU Where can I buy Drawing Room Confessions?

DRAWING ROOM CONFESSIONS New and older issues can be purchased online from our website or at a number of bookshops and art galleries in London. Drawing Room Confessions is distributed abroad by our partner Mousse Magazine and is on sale at the Mousse stand at international art fairs and book fairs.

YOU How can I get further information?

DRAWING ROOM CONFESSIONS You can consult our website and Facebook page, or write to us at drawingroomconfessions@gmail.com.

Individuals and groups may participate in future games by sponsoring a line, a section, or an entire issue of Drawing Room Confessions

More details here

The Medici

A Line £100.00 A Section £500.00 An Issue £email