Dessins sans limite

The Centre Pompidou Cabinet d’Art Graphique collection is one of the world’s greatest sets of works on paper from the 20^th and 21^st centuries. This amazingly rich and diverse collection has never before been presented in a large-scale, exclusive exhibition. “Limitless drawings” is an opportunity to reveal these priceless treasures for the first time and understand how this artistic medium was entirely reinvented in the 20th century. 

Many artists have taken up this seminal, cathartic form of expression in order to subvert the limits of art, making drawing today a laboratory for all that is possible. In addition to sheets of paper and the faithful sketch pad, its sphere of expression has stretched across to other media such as walls and installation areas and has opened up to embrace other practices – photography, film and digital technology. 
Renewed interest from younger generations of artists for this elementary, accessible medium testifies to its truly contemporary nature. The exhibition showcases rarely displayed major works from the collection, including pieces by Balthus, Marc Chagall, Willem de Kooning, Sonia Delaunay, Jean Dubuffet, George Grosz, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Amadeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Karel Appel, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Roland Barthes, Robert Breer, Trisha Brown, Marlène Dumas, William Kentridge, Robert Longo, Giuseppe Penone, Robert Rauschenberg, Kiki Smith and Antoni Tàpies. 
It proposes a sensitive and subjective exploration of the Cabinet d’Art Graphique collection through unique collations and with no chronological order, organised around four modalities: studying, recounting, tracing and animating.