On a weekday afternoon, the crowd viewing “El Gusto del Trazo” (The Pleasure of the Line) couldn’t match the one at the Louvre, yet a respectable stream of mostly young people, even a skateboard-toting couple, flowed through the graceful Ex Convento del Carmen in downtown Guadalajara scrutinizing the hundred or so drawings by French artist Nicolas de Crécy with obvious interest.
Perhaps de Crécy’s popularity at the moment has something to do with recent notoriety of a cartoon in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. In any case, de Crécy who has at least a dozen, mostly large, hardcover books, countless colorful cartoon frames and many larger drawings to his credit, might be called a sensation. 
And surely this popularity with young people is due to his fame as a “comic book” artist and master of biting social satire. But this idea falls short on several counts, at least from the viewpoint of an artistically inclined adult.
For one thing, calling his work “drawing” seems to understate things, as the framed work (facsimiles, we are told) comprises examples of every imaginable two-dimensional medium except oil painting: pencil, charcoal, pen and india ink, ballpoint, acrylic, watercolor, gouache and collage.
True, most of his work is indeed done for “comic books” that are populated with fantastic creatures (an obese golden chick on skis, seals, dogs) and weird or repulsive human characters. However, said “comic books,” are actually large format hardcover books with over a hundred pages each and with very long and subtle story lines. (12 of de Crécy’s books, which are supported by both French and Mexican cultural institutions, are on display for browsing at the Ex Convento, alongside the framed color pieces that went into the making of the books.)
Another reason not to dismiss de Crécy’s work as nothing more than caricatures for kids, is that his subject matter takes in far more than the fat and the fantastic. In fact, his grotesque figures appeared almost like an afterthought after I absorbed his imaginative use of perspectives, his eye for detail, especially architectural detail, and his love of observation, all of which permeate and brighten his work
Thus, while he does consistently stray into the dark and macabre (and this seems mandatory considering that he deals with dreams and fantasies), in the end some viewers may take away the same feeling that is encapsulated in the show’s title — the pleasure of drawing. Thus, leaving the Ex Convento, I forgot about de Crécy’s few graphic autopsy, murder and sex images and instead found myself focusing on the late afternoon sun hitting the walls of the Ex Convento and the church cuppola across the street and the modern, aqua hotel around the corner framed by the powder blue sky.
Obviously, an artist as prolific as de Crécy, who has travelled in, lived in and drawn like mad in Mexico, New York, Paris, Brazil, Portugal and Japan, doesn’t draw just to articulate his surrealistic sarcasm also but to express the pure joy of seeing. If you’re not careful, he’ll awaken the same thing in you.
“El Gusto del Trazo” (The Pleasure of the Line) shows at the Ex Convento del Carmen until February 15, although it is advertised in some quarters as lasting only until February 8. Avenida Juarez 638, two blocks east of Federalismo in downtown Guadalajara. Tel. (33) 3030-1385. No charge to enter. Open 10 to 8, Tuesday to Saturday, 10 to 6 Sunday. Closed Mondays.