Living on an island makes one acutely aware of territorial limits. Tony Cruz Pabón draws measurements and distances. Generally, these drawings do not happen on paper, but on walls and other surfaces. His Distance Drawings (2003–present) are unfinished wall drawings made with pencil, carbon or chalk that try to trace the miles separating one place from another, most often the distance travelled from his home in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to the place where he is exhibiting. The attempt to draw these distances almost always ends in failure, due to the impossibility of visualizing such a journey in its totality; the traces of the artist’s unattainable endeavour remain on the wall as the work of art.

Cruz Pabón has completed many of these drawings, including attempts to record the distances between San Juan and Vilnius (8,433 km) (2003), San Juan and Cuenca (2,762 km) (2004), San Juan and his parents’ house in Vega Alta (87 km, completed) (2004), the distance between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (420 km) (2008), and the distances from San Juan to London (6,751 km) (2011) and San Juan to Berliń (7,681 km) (2018). (Pablo León de la Barra).