In an old slaughterhouse-turned-art space outside the center of Madrid, the walls of a huge hall are covered with exactly 1,645 short and deliberate lines of chalk. This is not the work of a madman counting down the days in his asylum cell, but a commissioned project by artist Maider López, who spent 340 hours drawing the lines for 1645 Tizas, a project that was commissioned as part of an ongoing line of programming by Matadero Madrid, which asks artists “to reflect on the relationship of their work with the large volume of the industrial space it inhabits.”
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When walking into the hall (which measures at a formidable 571 square meters), the viewer is struck by the immensity of the space that is only heightened by the sharp chalk lines. The monumental space is painted using a tiny and ephemeral instrument with gestures that are also small and intimate. The project implies an action that happens behind closed doors, but at the same time the finished work of art reinforces its own process endlessly, creating a tension for the viewer, who doesn’t know whether to take in the whole room from afar or get up close and focus on the unique details of every transient line of chalk. Although the art is far from representative, it is evocative of its own process. This interplay allows the viewer to simultaneously discover the imperfections of each individual gesture as well as the cohesiveness of the larger space.See images of the monumental space below:
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