THING of the month November 2008: Leather portfolio with writing- and drawing utensils

This plain leather portfolio when opened discloses a selection of drawing and writing utensils: two fountain pens, two wooden pens, several metal pens, a leather cloth, a pencil, a sharpener and a rubber. The leather portfolio was probably produced in the GDR, its contents maybe comes from the GFR.

The producer of neither object has been identified yet. Their attribution to East or West-German origin is exclusively based on the viewer’s visual experience. Who combined these objects remains unknown, the portfolio was given as a gift to the collection.

Being the thing of the month in november, the portfolio with its writing and drawing utensils refers our current exhibition "Detour. The Moleskine Notebook Experience", which shows notebooks transformed by artists and designers. At the same time it reminds us by its East and West-German elements of the opening of the Berlin wall in november 1989 and the beginning of the unification.