Contradicciones | Catalina Mena

In this artwork, the artist proposes a system of associations in which the materiality, weight and fragility of its components promote dialogues with her previous artist’s book Gabinete de algunas contradicciones diarias (Cabinet of Some Daily Contradictions). They invite readers to reflect from a different perspective on the contradictory impulses that all individuals have, and how these relate to the constructive and destructive features of everyday-use objects. 

While in her previous work, Mena presented us with a book with bronze wings—which can fly, but still cut—; in this work, we are presented with a miniature of Gabinete…, held together by a field of more than 700 sewing pins nailed to the support. The lightness of the book, almost divorced from its nature, is opposed to the accuracy and permanency of the pins, which are generally associated with what is provisional. They face a glicee print of an intervened page of Gabinete…, so advancing a new dilemma of scales.

This publication’s print run is composed of 14 unique copies, designed and handbound at Naranja Publicaciones workshop. Each print was handmade intervened by the artist.