SATELLITE BERLIN
NULLA DIES SINE LINEA – NO DAY WITHOUT A LINE
13 February – 19 March 2016 · Based on an idea by Gaby Hartel
The creative mind often relies on rituals to enable it to retreat, draw inspiration from what it has sensed and create new forms. As the name of this exhibition implies, daily practice might be one of those rituals. But today's fast-paced, digital age distracts with constant connectivity to the outer world. Observing, feeling, listening, contemplating and reacting – at times all at once – require full engagement of the senses. Conscious discipline becomes essential to access one's inner world.
NULLA DIES SINE LINEA was conceived as an open-ended exhibition to examine the idea of the 'practiced mind' as a path to inspiration. "No day without a line [drawn]" is a saying attributed by Pliny the Elder to the ancient Greek painter Apelles, who was famously diligent in practicing his art every day. In this spirit, our show aims to examine the habits and practices used by agile thinkers to stay connected, or 'in line,' with the sublime.
If this 'line' represents a kind of key to the creative self, questions arise: What state of mind is necessary to come up with an idea for an artwork, a musical composition, the next sentence or verse, or a new theory? How does one access it on a regular basis? Most importantly, what role does daily routine play?
We invited artists, authors, scientists, philosophers and doyens to share their practices with us and contribute to our experimental show. SATELLITE BERLIN's space became a threshold to the creative process – a room, in which to listen and gain insight into fertile minds or to enter one's own. We received 38 contributions and added them day by day as they came by mail or were brought by or were installed by artists. The way they visually conjoined, overlapped and corresponded reflected the richness of the many voices heard, the variety of stillness that are the origins of individual creativity.
We thank all the participants, the agile thinkers, for their unique contributions and hope this publication will bear witness to quotidian workings of the creative mind.
Kit Schulte and Rebeccah Blum
Essay by Gaby Hartel
A chapter illustration of a book on drawing from 1643 depicts its content as a highly complex, self-referential image: a gloved hand seemingly growing out of the form that frames it—a wreath of bay leaves bound at its lowest end with two crossed feathers. The wreath being, of course, an emblem of fame and glory which is in our case connected to a symbol of the activity in which the student of the said book wishes to excel. Since the book is addressed to draughtsmen, the gloved hand leaves a trace on an otherwise empty plane: the schema of a human head. Then, the author himself—pedagogue that he is—leaves a precious piece of advice, so precious that it is written in two different languages and in two different fonts: "Nulla dies sine Linia."
This thought has been recorded by Pliny the Elder and it is valid to this very day. What it entails is that – artist or no artist – we seem to need to scratch the foil of the everyday in a repetitive rhythm to leave a physical trace in order to get ready and function in our respective fields. Leafing through artists' sketchbooks, I often sense that while drawing a repetitive pattern, line or theme they start circling in on what they see and feel, on their prevalent topics, their memories and interests, while their creative mind is preparing to seize the moment when they might start to work "for real." The moment when, in a paradoxical state of expectant passiveness, they suddenly perceive a chance to turn the flow of ordinary perceptions into something solid and contained. Into a specific form. Into an artwork.
The activity need not necessarily consist of drawing or painting. It might be reading or running, walking or doing exercises. The important thing seems to be that the activity is a physical act, an interacting with the grainy materiality of our surroundings. To the tactile eye and the sensitive hand, the existence of texture is a satisfying physio-aesthetic experience, one which William Hogarth referred to as a state of bliss found in irregular and winding lines, which he promoted to his celebrated "line of beauty and grace."
Repetitiveness in drawn lines or following a series of letters that make up a book may invite us to step into life. The movements of our eyes and hands evoke emotive echoes in our brains. Our fingers read, our eyes read and so does, finally, our intuitive intellect. Leaving a trace every day in the same way gives us a feeling for the material world, thereby helping us to viscerally understand it. To get a grasp on it.
— Gaby Hartel, Berlin, May 2016
The 38 Contributors
1 Werner Linster, artist, Berlin
2 Jorinde Voigt, artist, Berlin
3 Tom Chamberlain, artist, Mexico City
4 Ciprian Muresan, artist, Cluj
5 Veronike Hinsberg, artist, Berlin
6 Michael Kutschbach, artist, Berlin
7 Dr. Mark Gisbourne, curator, art historian, critic, Berlin
8 Katrin von Lehmann, artist, Berlin
9 Dr. Konstantinos Katsikopoulos, cognitive research scientist, Berlin
10 František Skála, artist, Prague
11 Lothar Götz, artist, London
12 Jonathan Turner, curator, art critic, Rome
13 Tamar Yoseloff, poet, London
14 Bjørn Hegardt, artist, curator, publisher, Berlin
15 Dr. Satyan Devadoss, mathematician, Claremont, CA
16 Robert Gschwantner, artist, Berlin
17 Amber Stucke, artist, Cincinnati, OH
18 Thora Dolven Balke, artist, Berlin/Oslo
19 Neil Gall, artist, London
20 Massimo Morasso, poet, Genoa
21 Dr. Arndt Pechstein, neuroscientist, Berlin
22 Liliane Lijn, artist, London
23 Saul Fletcher, artist, Berlin
24 Juliane Laitzsch, artist, Berlin
25 Phil Minton, jazz/free improvisation vocalist, London
26 Béatrice Gysin, artist, Biel
27 Mark Pascale, artist, curator, Chicago
28 Owen Schuh, artist, San Francisco
29 Thomas Stammer, production designer, Berlin
30 Prof. Dr. Sue Denham, neuroscientist, Plymouth, UK
31 Lorenzo Rocha, architect, Mexico City
32 Fabio Sonnino, set and costume designer, Rome
33 Carrie Beehan, songwriter, performance artist, New York
34 Nanne Meyer, artist, Berlin
35 Linda Karshan, artist, London/New York
36 Alexander Ross, artist, New York State
37 Joseph Kosuth, artist, New York and London
38 Dr. Paul Wrede, microbiologist, Berlin