PUBLIC IMAGE LTD.

2009
Installation: printed matter.
Drawing Center, New York.

As one of the original works created for the ongoing exhibition FAX, Christian Tomaszewski’s FAX: Public Image Ltd. involved gathering 80 images available to the public—in local newspapers and on the web—and inviting acquaintances to circulate them around the globe. Along with the images, participants were provided with a map and an ordered list of names and fax numbers. Should they choose to participate, they would fax their image to the next person on the list, helping the images traverse the map and giving rise to something new in the process. The images’ destination would be The Drawing Center in New York City, where they would become part of the group exhibition. FAX reintroduces the fax machine as a drawing tool. By faxing the image to the next address on the list, through the mechanical interface of the machine, participants contribute to the transformation of the final image into a new drawing.

Curated by João Ribas, FAX is an evolving exhibition that started in New York in 2009, and continues to be reconfigured, expanded, and localized as it is presented—often simultaneously—in venues worldwide. FAX invites artists, architects, designers, scientists, and filmmakers to conceive of the fax machine as a drawing tool. Participants submit fax-based work via the museum’s working fax line throughout the duration of the exhibition. The accumulation of information, errors of transmission, junk faxes, “fax lore,” as well as drawings and text, results in an exhibition concerned with reproduction, obsolescence, distribution, and mediation. Through the infinitely reproducible, yet erratic outcomes of producing works via the fax machine, the show displaces traditional notions of the hand that are still commonly associated with the medium of drawing, and instead foregrounds drawing as a generative process. 

The first iteration of the exhibition featured a core of works by nearly 100 artists, including seminal examples of early telecommunication art. With each new incarnation, the hosting institutions are encouraged to invite additional artists to submit works, which are then permanently added to the show. New participants submit faxes throughout the duration of the presentation using a specially designed cover sheet by Dexter Sinister. Visitors view the collection of faxes on the walls or flip through archival binders to see over 500 pages of works. This exhibition is co-organized by The Drawing Center, New York, and ICI (Independent Curators International), New York, and circulated by ICI.