Fukt Magazine No. 17 - The Words Issue - Written Drawings

Fukt, according to the website of the same name, means “moist” or “damp” in Scandinavian languages. And Fukt is, indeed, damp with inky pages of images. Run by editor Bjørn Hegardt and designer Ariane Spanier, Fukt (feel your tongue touch the roof of your mouth) with its subtitle, Magazine for Drawing, has been published annually since 2000.

The archive of contributors on the website is an amazing trove of creatives of all kinds, who challenge understanding of what drawing can be and do in a variety of unthinkable, unlikely and unknown ways. The Unknown is the theme of the current issue but the editors are also republishing the previously sold out, and still much sought after, Fukt #17 - The Words Issue. This features work from famous artists such as Sol LeWitt and Ed Ruscha alongside unexpected experiments with words and formats by lesser known image-makers. The latter include, tucked away at the back of the magazine, six-year-old Juni Spanier’s 2018 Post-It note protest work, I Don’t Want to Go to Swim Class.

Drawing is an early schooling in protest against conformity, a practice of self-assertion and self-expression, as anyone who ever saw themselves in the scrawl of band names on their copybooks.