Mimicking the aesthetics and texture of the famed Moleskin sketchbooks that artists have used for decades to hash out their ideas, Armpit of the Mole may very well become your new favorite drawing compilation. Forty-four artists have contributed six pages each to this book to present here their research of ideas or their depictions of various universes. Here Marcel Dzama brushes up against Michelle Naismuth, and Wim Delvoye and later blends into Florian & Michael Quistrebert, who lead to Thierry Agnone. The styles differ from distant to confrontational, formal to narrative, obsessional to nonchalant, and controversial to bucolic. Flipping through Armpit of the Mole, it feels as though someone tore pieces out of each artist's sketchbook and bound them all together. Yet, the collection of images is thought out and designed like a succession of varied and original works that are different yet connected--much like a good DJ set.
