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I went to NYC yesterday to see an exhibit of Latin American modernism @ MoMA: how I wish I'd gone on this jaunt while our class was still in session! The exhibit, which featured the work of just two artists--León Ferrari and Mira Schendel--was entitled "Tangled Alphabets"; it was a wonderful exploration of what might happen if you think about words as images, if you paint and draw and sculpt words--in typset, or in abstract calligraphies--as images. So much for our much-vaunted distinctions between them!

Some passages that caught my attention:

• "language is transparent, only complete through public interaction"
• "Escritas (Written)": "time passed, but nobody can read time"
• "not a readable text: visual rhyme, abstract patterns..."
  
  (I found myself wondering here about the applicability of the Islamic injunction against representing things/the works of God/the natural world, while allowing the representation of words, the works of people. What happens when words are made into things?)



• "babbling": individuals are composed of endless layers of time-based experiences and memories
  
• the desire to make a tower collaboratively, working together without looking @ one another's work...