2 June – 2 July 2016
Fiona Connor, Kirsten Everberg, Jorge Mendez Blake, Pae White & Paul Winstanley
Jan Albers, John Baldessari, Fiona Banner, Fiona Connor, Kirsten Everberg, Jorge Mendez Blake, Liliana Moro, Jorge Pardo, Jessica Stockholder, SUPERFLEX, Kerry Tribe, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Paul Winstanley & Pae White
Jorge Méndez Blake (b. 1974) is a mixed-media, conceptual artist from Guadalajara, Mexico, whose work revolves around books, libraries and literature. An architect by profession, Méndez Blake has evolved a conceptual language, both reductive and metaphorical, that translates literary texts into images, sculptures and installations – referring to the great masters of universal literature, such as William Shakespeare, Jules Verne, Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges, among many others.. Based on his belief that “writing is itself a kind of construction and reading is a way of creation”, he transforms the literary into the spatial thereby giving a physical dimension to the act of reading. His work focuses on the themes classic authors pose through their books, as well as the value of literature as a means of communication and a depository of knowledge; quite fittingly, Mendez Blake produces and catalogues his work in a series of conceptual chapters, each focusing on a different theme, author or approach. Mendez Blake also explores the notion of “library”, understood not only as a receptor that accumulates knowledge, but as an object with infinite formal possibilities; an institution whose purpose is the preservation of books and the dissemination of knowledge. The artist sees libraries not as isolated buildings, but as constructions that hold inexhaustible sources of information, and are thus able to create microsystems that address specific issues such as landscape or love.
Jorge Mendez Blake
Cuaik (SPA): Spaces for Contemporary Living is the first monograph showcasing the vibrant and contemporary interior designs of the Mexico-based studio, with the text written by Jorge Mendez Blake.
Cuaik’s interior designs are characterized by clean lines, neutral palettes, and abundant natural light. Their spaces often incorporate custom-made furniture and artworks, textured materials, and vibrant, strategically placed accents. Emphasizing functionality and aesthetic harmony, Cuaik blends contemporary design with local cultural elements, creating environments that are both elegant and inviting.
Published by Rizzoli
Hardcover
288 pages
10 x 11 4/5 in.
ISBN: 978-88-918-4272-5
Other Literature (English translation)
Jorge Méndez Blake
Other Literature (English translation), by leading Mexican artist Jorge Méndez Blake, highlights the importance of libraries as structures of knowledge and as architectural entities. Exploring the theme in works by Méndez Blake, the volume includes essays by renowned art critics and architects, including Sarah Demeuse, Verónica Gerber, and Luis Felipe Fabre.
Published by RM, 2016
Hardcover, 6.5 x 9.5 inches, 408 pages.
On March 31, 2013, artist Jorge Méndez Blake stayed at the Habita Downtown Hotel in Mexico City, house of the Ateneo Mexicano in the XIX century. During his overnight stay in room number 4, between check-in and check-out, he wrote 17 poems, one for each room. La habitación del escritor (The Writer's Room) is a compilation of these 17 poems.
La habitación del escritor (The Writer's Room)
Printed in Mexico, DF
Design: JMB / MCH
Edition of 500
Sources: Akzidenz Grotesk and Corporate S
This publication was made possible with the support from the National Fund for Culture and the Arts through the National ArtistsProgram 2009.
Revised and expanded edition of a book originally published to accompany an exhibition at ArtBrussels 2009.
Publisher: Meessen De Clerq / OMR
ISBN: 978-2-930528-03-8
Jorge Mendez Blake
Dialogos sobre un poeta, una manzana y una reticula
“Dialogues about a Poet, an Apple, and a Grid” is a non-linear fragmented story of a conversation between a poet and an architect, happening amidst the lava fields of an hortus conclusus. The 20 dialogues were originally written for a series of typewriter machine works.
ISBN: 978-607-98477-7-7
68 pages, softcover
Edition of 550
The Variations of its Shadows: An Interview with Jorge Méndez Blake by Caroline Picard
Every book creates a world, a place that readers enter through language on the first page, and inhabit thereafter, as the text's unique character compounds in an individual's imagination. This happens with novels, with philosophy, mathematical treatises, and poems. How astonishing it is to consider the lush autonomous universe each spine on a bookshelf proposes. Each of those worlds has a logical structure that cajoles a reader into its unique proposition—a situation not so different, perhaps, from that of architecture. The Guadalajara-based multimedia artist, Jorge Méndez Blake, addresses this intersection directly by translating nuanced themes embedded in canonical books into art installations. In our interview, we discuss this process of translation, looking at how it differs from literary criticism, and drifting over the site of Emily Dickinson's desk.
Caroline Picard: Your installations interpret the work of different authors like Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis Borges, Emily Dickinson, Franz Kafka, Edgar Allan Poe, Shakespeare, and Jules Verne, by drawing out nuanced themes within a book (or poem) into a single place and time; it is almost like you draw a three-dimensional translation of the book in space. Do you see a connection between what you do and literary criticism?
Jorge Méndez Blake: My approach to books and language is more as a reader than as a critic. I like reading literary criticism, but I'm working from the side of art, and art should propose different ways of understanding literature, not the same ones as critics. Approaching a book through sculpture expands the possibilities of regular literary criticism. I believe some seminal texts of the history of literature have many possibilities of interpretation: there's nothing new under the sun, but the variations of its shadows are infinite.