This text is about Lotty Rosenfeld’s work, beginning with Una milla de cruces sobre el pavimento [A Mile of Crosses on the Pavement]. In his essay, Gonzalo Muñoz discusses the interest that Rosenfeld’s action stirred up as a reflection on territories and human bodies while questioning writing; its political undertones also dramatized the issue of power. Muñoz notes how the crosses that Rosenfeld created on a road relate to the essential elements of an artistic approach, the sign, and its meanings. In his opinion, a mark is always different; not always lineal, open to multiplicity, and proposing a plurality as an alternative to the solitary discourse of power. The impact of an instructive, standardizing viewpoint was another thing that Rosenfeld’s performance addressed. Muñoz describes her in the act of creating crosses on the highway that leads to El Tololo observatory in the vicinity of La Serena, Chile.   

In his text “Una sola línea para siempre” [Just One Line Forever], the poet Gonzalo Muñoz (b. 1950), discusses the work of Lotty Rosenfeld (1943–2020) from an allegorical perspective. Rosenfeld’s idea consisted of pasting adhesive strips of white fabric at right angles to the intermittent traffic lines painted on the road to create plus signs or crosses. This text appeared in Desacato [Disobedience]  (1986), which reviews—from various theoretical perspectives—the work she produced from 1979 to 1986. The book was edited by Francisco Zegers (1953–2012). Other contributors include the cultural critic Nelly Richard (b. 1948), the poet Raúl Zurita (b. 1950), the writers Diamela Eltit (b. 1949) and María Eugenia Brito (b. 1950), and Múñoz. The book also includes the artist’s comments on her works and an excerpt from a conversation between Rosenfeld and Severo Sarduy (1937–1993), the Cuban writer who lived in Paris, with a chronological timeline of her art actions and a videography. [For more information about this book, see the following in the ICAA Digital Archive: “Introducción” (744924) by Zegers, the editor.]  

Muñoz was a poet; he was close to the Escena de Avanzada and wrote about the works of several atists, including Virginia Errázuriz, Francisco Brugnoli, the C.A.D.A. group, and Eugenio Dittborn [see “Una política” (735205) and “Eugenio Dittborn y Gonzalo Muñoz a propósito de la historia sentimental” (731931); he also wrote about exhibitions showcasing Chilean artists in Chile and elsewhere: “El gesto del otro” (736081)].

In 1979 Lotty Rosenfeld began working on Una milla de cruces sobre el pavimento [A Mile of Crosses on the Pavement], her best-known project. She took to the streets of Santiago to add strips of white fabric at right angles to the broken lines demarcating traffic lanes, thus creating a string of crosses or plus signs on urban thoroughfares. The first time she performed this action she spent four hours working on an avenue in an affluent neighborhood in the city. She recorded the process on video and photographs that she later used as the basis for other works. The project was designed to challenge traffic signs and other codes, rules, and standards. The term desacato (disobedience) provides insight into her body of work as a whole, every part of which challenges power.

Rosenfeld performed her action in a number of different places from 1979 to 1986. She used several streets in Santiago, for example, repeating her performance outside the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, the Palacio De La Moneda, the seat of the Chilean government, and the Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Chile (1984). She also staged her action in other countries: on the street outside the Tribunales de Justicia [Law Courts] in Buenos Aires (1985) and the White House in Washington, DC (1982). [See the following texts written by the artist about her own work: “Proposiciones para (entre) cruzar espacios límites” (744898); “Trazado de cruces sobre el pavimento” (731835); and “Una herida