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W, that’s the way I see it (or the notebook, a user’s manual of an amateur who classifies things) was part of the Poetics of the Handmade exhibition (MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA., 2007), curated by Alma Ruiz, who asked me to create a mural of hand-colored paper napkins especially for this exhibition. This time I decided to show the transference of the photographic image of reference towards the drawing mural in a more direct way, distancing myself from the original model, as the color palette used was reduced to shades of gray and red scales.

The image of the mural showed a frontal view of a bookcase, where it was possible to see the titles printed on the spines of several books, which were related directly to the title of the work: W stands for W, or the memory of childhood (1975) by French writer Gorges Perec; That’s the way I see it refers to David Hockney’s That’s the way I see it (1993); the notebook, refers to Agota Kristof’s first novel The notebook (1986); and finally a user’s manual comes from Life: A user’s manual (1978); the word amateur refers to (Un cabinet d’amateur) A gallery portrait (1979); classifies comes from (Penser / classer) Thoughts of sorts (1985); and things from Things: A story of the sixties (1965), all novels by Georges Perec. This assembly of books have been the more significant readings throughout the years, providing references, motivations, meaning, tones that are still important to my work today.

related texts

Art is Made by the Hands

author

Art Is Made by the Hands. Alma Ruiz, in Exhibition catalogue Poetics of the Handmade, p.14-16. Los Angeles, CA., United States. 2007


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