KIPNZ is pleased to present Government Money, an exhibition of 100 drawings made by a government employee throughout the workday and collected anonymously by a coworker—after hours, once discarded, over several years. 

We have all been there. A job we can’t stand, tasks we have no interest in performing, managers we no longer want to please. One government employee took to doodling; transforming procrastination and “quiet quitting” into an obsessive practice of drawing, Monday to Friday, 9AM to 5PM. 

Deeply repetitive and meditative, the drawings fill sheets of copy paper with simple black and blue ballpoint ink. The monotonous lines and markings form patterns and rhythms from the sparest of materials. Sometimes accompanied by notes from the day—a telephone number, a calculation, a message to relay—the drawings, once finished, would be discarded, before starting anew. 

In parallel to this obsession brewed another. A co-worker, interested in the near-obsessive drawing (and charmed by such disregard for work) began to collect these abandoned sheets of paper at the end of each day. Over several years, the drawings were quietly preserved, building the collection we see today. 

All parties have since retired. Proceeds from the sale of these works will be donated to the government agency which formerly employed them.