Nicola Lopez’s “Bone Dry.”

The peak of the art season has arrived. From now through March, museums and galleries will be putting their best faces forward. These days, that often includes hyper-visual and -optical art works, including video, installation, big painting and a combination of all of those. So it’s a nice respite to see what the Girls’ Club Collection of Fort Lauderdale (a Knight Arts grantee) will be opening up tonight for its Art Basel show, called “Following the Line.” Yes, it’s about that “simple” form of drawing, but with all the twists and turns that the form has taken in the contemporary era.

The line, as the Girls’ Club explains in its exhibition notes, remains the primary tool in the creation of most artworks, but sometimes that is hidden. But drawing in general also remains one of the most intimate and personal forms of expression. Taking examples of this from the collection of Francie Bishop Good and David Horvitz, curator Carol Jazzar has put together works from 30 artists. They include internationally famous names such as Tracey Emin, Louise Bourgeois and Julie Mehretu; and local names such as Naomi Fisher, Christy Gast and Jiae Hwang. Oh and wait, although this is the Girls’ Club, an exhibition center (not really a gallery or museum, more a Kunsthalle) focused on highlighting works from women, this show also includes men. Male artists such as William Cordova, Jorge Pantoja and Raul Perdomo. That’s the way it should be. Making lines between feminine and masculine art these days is so 20th century – artists cross lines and boundaries all the time.

By whatever gender creates them, drawings are still an essential part of all art, contemporary and otherwise. “The persistent vitality of drawing today, developing alongside high tech digital and moving image media, will be emphasized,” according to the exhibition notes. “Linear works that owe their inspiration to drawing will craft an ‘expanded’ definition of drawing in use today.” It’s an exciting proposition to discover such expansions.

“Following the Line” opens tonight at 6 p.m. and will have special hours and a brunch during Art Basel Miami Beach, Dec. 5-9, at the Girls’ Club Collection, 117 N.E. 2nd St., Ft. Lauderdale. Go to girlsclubcollection.org for more information.