Michelle Stuart
San Juan Ermita de Chiquimula, 1978
Cloth, string, muslin-mounted rag paper (Earth and rock marks from site in San Juan Ermita de Chiquimula, Guatemala)
22.9 x 17.8 x 7.6 cm, 9 1/8 x 7 1/8 x 3 ins
Unique
© Michelle Stuart
Further images
The pages of San Juan Ermita de Chiquimula are tied with string into a bundle protected by a hard cover. The iron oxide in the soil has coloured the pages...
The pages of San Juan Ermita de Chiquimula are tied with string into a bundle protected by a hard cover. The iron oxide in the soil has coloured the pages a dark reddish-brown which makes them seem as desiccated as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The notes Stuart made on site include the comments: "The Maya believed that buildings, like people, were born, lived and then died." The apparent fragility of her books and the inaccessibility of their pages encourage one to equate them with ancient manuscripts that, like Mayan buildings, have died and shed their knowledge. (Sarah Kent, 'Time Travel', 2018)
Provenance
Collection the artist, New York, USAExhibitions
Hollow Earth: Art, Caves & The Subterranean Imaginary, Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition, touring Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, 24 September 2022 – 22 January 2023; Glucksman, Cork, 7 April - 9 July 2023; Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter, 23 September 2023 – 7 January 2024The Nature of Time, Alison Jacques Gallery, London, UK, 1 June - 28 July 2018
Publications
Michelle Stuart: The Nature of Time. Exhibition catalogue. London: Alison Jacques Gallery, 2019, p.43 (colour)Michelle Stuart: Drawn From Nature, essays by Anna Lovatt, Jane McFadden and Nancy Princenthal (exhibition catalogue). Ostfildern, Germany. Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2013, p. 58
Michelle Stuart: Sculptural Objects: Journeys In and Out of the Studio, introduction by Lucy R. Lippard. Charta, 2010, p. 48
Revered Earth, essays by Dominique Mazeaud and Melinda Wortz (exhibition catalogue). Pratt Institute, New York and Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico. 1990, p. 57