Alfredo Häberli Design Development

Since my earliest childhood, drawing has been part of my life. As a boy, when I visited my grandfather, he usually undertook quiet activities with my siblings and me. First, we all loosened our hands by filling a sheet of paper with endless circles: All in one direction on one sheet and all in the other on the next. This warm-up exercise not only helped to calm us but also, to empty our minds and to not think of anything other than the line, the pencil, and the sheet of paper. I think, that’s when I first took a line for a walk. Today, thanks to the right feel for the line, I am able to pursue an idea freehand, according to what my gut tells me to do. And to thus work out an approach successfully – without the need to use words or to force myself to think about it. When you think, drawing becomes halting and the flow is interrupted. The process is demanding but also very interesting. You need to learn to trust hand and pencil. When I allow for flow without thought when drawing, I can feel, in the pencil, the idea manifest itself. In 2003, I was working on a winged chair for the Italian manufacturer Moroso and at the same time, reading a book on Paul Klee. He was quoted as having said that for him, drawing was like going for a walk with a pencil. I fetched my sketchbook and realized that I felt the same: Drawing was like an endless stroll with a pencil. The exhibition «Walk the Line» builds the bridge between drawing and object, between Paul Klee and myself. This exhibition was about identifying subjective topics and demonstrating commonalities. The exhibition is not a comparison – although drawing was and remains the same major challenge for both. The staging is, very much more so, an encounter between two lines: The first two-dimensional; the other reaching into the third dimension. There are lines that follow a direct path but there are also lines that have no goal. Some lines are points out on a walk; others are ideas waiting to be connected. But one thing is clear: There were and are no days without lines – not for Klee and not for me.

Fotos: © David Röthlisberger