INDEX
Freedom to Draw on the Museum Floor
Upon entering the venue, you’re greeted by graffiti covering the entire floor! The first exhibition room serves as the stage for Ei Arakawa-Nash’s work Mega, Please Feel Free to Draw, where, on every Sunday performance day, anyone can freely draw on the floor with the provided crayons. Directly on the museum floor, that is. While it was known that you could draw, one might have assumed there would be sheets of paper laid out, but no—it’s straight on the floor. This piece was first presented at Tate Modern in 2021 to much acclaim, and is set to tour to Munich, Germany in 2025.
During the interview, the floor was already covered in paint, having been decorated by around 100 local elementary school students. By the exhibition’s end, the floor will likely be entirely filled with more graffiti. Interestingly, when people are invited to “feel free to draw,” they often create images of either “things they love” or “feelings of anger.” This unexpected reaction forces a moment of reflection on the deeper motivations behind artistic expression.
The act of drawing an imperfect image on the floor of a museum, typically reserved for beautiful art, leads you to reconsider the very notions of beauty and value. For instance, if Picasso were to show up and quickly sketch a pigeon here, would it be protected? With such thoughts in mind, I stepped over the artwork on the floor and moved to the next gallery.
