Codigo Desconhecido #5

Marilá Dardot

Brazilian, born 1972

This work is part of a series that the artist began during a residency in Vienna, when she was surrounded by books printed in a language she could not read. Here she renders a series of books just as illegible by cutting them to the spine, evoking complex questions around language and communication: which stories are written and which are forgotten, what knowledge is passed on and to whom, and what is lost in translation.

Book spines, MDF, mounted with Velcro

Overall installation: 10 x 84 in (25.4 x 213.4 cm)

Gift of Dennis Braddock in memory of Janice Niemi

2023.22.9

Provenance: The artist; [Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, Brazil]; purchased from gallery by Dennis Braddock and Janice Niemi, Seattle, Washington, 2016

Photo: Scott Leen

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Everyday Poetics, Nov. 18, 2017 - June 17, 2018.

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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