Arte Santander 2025: Disegno as Strategy

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At Arte Santander 2025, our presentation revisits disegno, the Renaissance concept that goes far beyond “drawing” as we know it today. For artists like Rachel Libeskind, Felipe Castelblanco, and Andreas Steinbrecher, disegno remains both a technical skill and a philosophical approach—an artistic strategy that precedes, sustains, and expands other practices.

Andreas Steinbrecher’s Autos series explores the tension between free, gestural sketches and controlled, precise painting. Working directly with graphite on canvas, Steinbrecher embraces spontaneity to test the limits of material and pictorial format, developing a fresh approach to painting from Düsseldorf.

Felipe Castelblanco’s photographic series Detrás de la noche was produced in the Amazon rainforest at night. Using ultraviolet light to reveal how plants “see themselves,” Castelblanco overcame the darkness by turning to drawing as a vital tool for close observation and understanding of these nocturnal landscapes.

Rachel Libeskind, a leading voice in contemporary collage, builds her works from visual archives she reconfigures with humor and sharp critique of women’s roles in religion and society. Here, disegno becomes crucial for articulating the tension of ekphrasis—where language tries to capture or replace what is purely visual. Her collages become an expanded field where image and text collide and coexist.

This Arte Santander 2025 proposal highlights how disegno is not just a trace on paper but an idea that continues to shape and challenge contemporary art practice.