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curated by Rachel Gugelberger

JORGE MÉNDEZ BLAKE


Project for Pavilion / Open Library III, 2011 (installation view)
Plexiglas, metal base and mirror
Maquette: 29.5 x 24 x 14 inches; Base: 38 x 36 x 36 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Galeria OMR
Photograph by Mia O.


Project for Pavilion / Open Library III, 2011 (detail)
Plexiglas, metal base and mirror
Maquette: 29.5 x 24 x 14 inches; Base: 38 x 36 x 36 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Galeria OMR
Photograph by Mia O.


Using literature as a conceptual tool, Jorge Méndez Blake creates fictional spaces that are inhabited by non-existent collections of books. Project for Pavilion / Open Library III is informed by Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Library of Babel” (an infinite library) and “The Garden of Forking Paths” (a labyrinth, or multiple ways of reading a single text).


Study for a Marx Library, 2009/2011
Paint on wall
5 feet high x 4 feet wide
Courtesy of the artist and 1301PE, Los Angeles
Photograph by Mia O.

In site-specific wall paintings, the artist gathers a selection of texts that are rendered in the reductive minimalist form of color-coded compositions to evoke libraries. Each pantone-colored rectangle is based on an actual book cover, representing both the spine of a book and the space the book occupies on a shelf.