Not a Day Without a Line – Thought in Motion

In the humble shop front of Defensa 1455, mythical animals hang out with aging superheroes and provocative nude women flaunt themselves in front of futuristic gauchos.

Conjured by the simple means of A4 paper, pencils, pens, and the prolific imaginations of ten artists, these characters are the creations of ‘Ni un Día Sin una Línea’ (Not a Day Without a Line). The project is so named because each participant creates a drawing every day, building up an archive since 2006 that now holds around 5,000 images. It is truly a work in motion, or as they put it, a ‘collective essay without certainties’.

The images are often surreal, mysterious and humorous. There’s a mythical bird warrior, a woman with a sewing machine for a leg, a portrait of Batman who is now old and overweight. Tango dancing feet appear beneath a scribbled veil of darkness, while in other drawings futuristic vehicles fly through space, and filing cabinets emit ominous clouds of smoke.

The artists, who work in the fields of sculpture, graphic design, architecture and painting, decided to start a project which championed something that they all do, but which often seems subordinate.

“We all draw, but we wanted to do it as something principal. It’s important that it exists as something in itself,” says Omar Estela, one of the main initiators of the venture. “The drawings can be of whatever, with no pressure to produce a finished piece of art.”

This unpolished, in-progress quality is one of the work’s main attractions. Blank spaces leave room for the viewer’s own imagination to come into play, particularly in Héctor Meana’s portraits where facial features float in nothingness, and in Javier Bernasconi’s works where diminutive figures walk in an indeterminate space.

The sketches are thought in motion. The half-drawn object, the flickering memory, images taken from the daily news, scribbles and rubbings-out make you feel as though you can see the artist’s thought processes. The fact that the artists draw one piece a day gives the project something of the air of a journey, even a personal diary.

“It is more than just a drawing – when you can see 300 images together, you have a line of thought,” says Marcela Oliva. “When I looked back I discovered there was another me.”

“When you see all the drawings together you realise that you are not the person that you believed you were,” Omar agrees.

The artists began using A4 paper simply because this made it easier to scan and upload them onto the website, but now that the project is in real space, they have continued to use it. “It’s a common, bureaucratic format, and we want to convert that into a piece of art,” says Marcela.

They explain that there are some days when there is no inspiration, but each of them has their own way of finding subject matter. Marcela’s drawings, for instance, are often inspired by books or films: “I made this one after I read about a tribe that bury their dead in tree trunks, and this other one is inspired by a surrealist film where women’s sexuality is associated with the eye,” she explains.

Pablo Engels’ works, in contrast, are abstract textures that come from something instinctive, like a rhythm, influenced by his other occupation as a musician.

Architect Alfonso Piatini introduces himself as a ‘frustrated graphic artist’, playing around with images inspired by graphic novels. “This one is Batman’s chauffer,” he says, “but the point of departure can be anything. This one is a transvestite that I saw in the gay pride parade wearing a Richard Nixon mask.

Perhaps it is its simplicity of means that has meant that drawing has enjoyed a resurgence in the last few years in Europe and the US.  In a recent interview for art magazine Contemporary, the president of the Drawing Center in New York, George Negroponte, was asked to explain its surge in popularity.

“Drawing is becoming more relevant because the primitive or low-tech has a new resonance with young people. Anything simple has become wondrous! And, of course, you can take a pencil and piece of paper almost anywhere.”

Because of its immediacy, many commentators, including Negroponte, define drawing as the medium which acts as the most direct bridge between thought and expression.

“The very unrehearsed and improvised nature of invention or creativity is embodied in the act of drawing,” he says.

The Drawing Center, and more recently opened Drawing Room in London, are centres dedicated to promoting the medium. I ask the artists if anything like this exists here in Buenos Aires, apart from their project.

“We are the avant garde!” they reply, explaining that the only similar thing in Buenos Aires is a room dedicated to drawing in the Centro Cultural Borges.

The space is managed by the artists themselves. Insistent that it is not defined as a gallery, since that would imply it belonged to the art market, they refer to it as ‘a space for thought’. “A museum or gallery is a cold space, this is a warm space. It reaches out into the neighbourhood,” says Omar.

I am reminded of his drawing of a museum guard, a symbol of what he sees as the non-participatory nature of the museum that does not trust the viewer. “The museum makes the visitor into an imbecile,” he says.

Recently the group have started a series of drawings that they project live out onto the street, so that taxi drivers and passers by can see them. This, and a series of postcards which they produce for bars and restaurants, help disseminate the drawings to people who might not normally go to galleries.

“We want to break the sects and reach out to people. We also run workshops to promote the idea of drawing. We want to recuperate drawing as something we can all do,” says Omar.

Like many creative people in Buenos Aires, these artists have refused to wait around for large institutions and fashions to swing their way, and instead have carved out a path using their own means, and true to their own ideas. “We’re not into fashions and trends. We’re trying to do something simple and humble,” they say.

In a form of grassroots rebellion they are championing the art of drawing, promoting it as something primary and participative, a tool for thought, and a way of life. Omar is keen not to over-sensationalise the creative process however, reminding me of the fact that creativity takes steady toil, rather than lightening strikes of inspiration. “There is a quote by Picasso,” he says. “Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working.”

 

‘Ni un Día Sin una Línea’ started in 2006 on the web: www.niundiasinunalinea.com.ar and is now an ongoing project situated at Defensa 1455, between Brasil and Juan de Garay. Tel: 4307 7940.