Profanación

Abstract

The document is a theoretical and practical reflection on drawing as an artistic medium and its transformation from a sacralized object within the gallery space to an ephemeral presence in the urban environment. Cuervo examines how drawings, when framed and exhibited in galleries, acquire a pseudo-sacred character that distances them from everyday viewers. In response, he proposes an act of profanation inspired by Giorgio Agamben removing his drawings from the institutional frame and placing them on city walls. This action reclaims the drawings for common use, democratizing art and allowing it to be reinterpreted based on the social, spatial, and cultural contexts in which it is displayed.

This performative gesture, which Cuervo sees as a way to return art to public life, involves physically separating the drawing from its traditional support and embedding it in the urban landscape, where it loses its sanctified aura but gains a direct experiential dimension. Through this process, the drawing becomes not only a visual message but also a critical intervention that reconfigures public space and questions symbolic structures within contemporary art. By leaving the sacred pedestal of the gallery, the artwork becomes part of the living city—shared, exposed, and subject to new meanings shaped by its immediate environment.