At a glance
A collective laboratory where the artist’s notebook becomes the artwork: intimate, experimental and filled with ideas still visibly in motion.
Why go
You'll see
Artist’s notebooks treated as independent artworks Drawing, collage, illustration and mixed graphic techniques Personal interpretations of a common format Experimental studies alongside more resolved compositions A collective display connecting many distinct visual voices
Pace of visit
Casamadre is an intimate space, but artist’s books require closer attention than their scale suggests.
Don't miss
Contemporary drawing · Artist’s books · Works on paper · Illustration · Graphic experimentation · Collaborative art
The sketchbook as artwork · Drawing as process · Personal visual languages · Collective experimentation · Repetition and variation · Intimacy · Work in progress
Artlovers Tip
Add it to your route.
This is not a reason to travel to Madrid on its own, but it is a worthwhile independent stop while exploring Lavapiés. Its appeal lies in proximity: visitors encounter the marks, revisions and unfinished thoughts that larger exhibitions frequently edit out.
The collective format will inevitably feel uneven, but that variety is part of the proposition. Rather than searching for a single curatorial argument, approach it as an open graphic laboratory and look for unexpected connections between notebooks.
Inside the exhibition
Description
Laboratorio gráfico presents work developed through El Cuaderno Negro, a collective artist-book project directed by Iván Araujo. Its starting point is deliberately simple: the notebook as a shared format within which artists from different disciplines can experiment without needing to produce a conventional finished object.
Drawing is central, but the project is broader than a drawing exhibition. Pages can become spaces for collage, writing, illustration, texture, repetition or visual storytelling. Each participant works independently, yet the consistent notebook format creates a thread between otherwise very different approaches.
Presented at Espacio Casamadre, the exhibition brings private creative processes into a public setting. The notebooks retain something of the studio: provisional decisions, accumulated gestures and images that develop through time. That immediacy is the exhibition’s main strength—the sensation of seeing artistic thought while it is still forming.
The project is led by the artist Iván Araujo, whose practice encompasses drawing, graphic work and collaborative creative processes. Rather than imposing a uniform style, the project establishes a common structure through which each participating artist can develop an individual visual language.
Laboratorio gráfico — El Cuaderno Negro
Artlovers relevance
Plan your visit
Espacio Casamadre
Madrid, Spain
