Drawing for German

Nicky Enright was awarded a Don Quixote Fellowship for his project, "Drawing for German," which took him to Berlin, Germany during summer 2022.

The proposal was to develop his German skills as Don Quixote might have envisioned: by attempting to create portraits of all of Berlin’s 3.6 million residents. Every person willing to sit for their portrait while helping improve his German skills received the original artwork in exchange.

He also requested musical tracks from every participant, creating a Spotify playlist, also titled Drawing for German. It is a musical representation of Berlin, now available to the public.

Drawing for German was a socially-engaged public performance: the artist wandering the streets of Berlin in search of subjects, inviting people’s participation, and sketching volunteers within whatever timeframe was granted. In doing so the artist brought art to communities outside of an art context, as he has done in his ongoing, international-currency project, The Globo, where he exchanges Globos for the local currency. Similarly, the alternative means of exchange here were his art for something Berliners possess in abundance: conversational German language skills.

The Don Quixote Fellowship is awarded by the Academy for Teachers (NYC) to “support idealistic, romantic, creative, impractical, adventurous projects.”