These crystal objects possess excerpts of the correspondence between French writers and lovers Gustave Flaubert and Louise Colet. While Flaubert’s letters have been widely published, Colet’s did not make it to posterity. Bloom began working on this project in 1987. The artist rewrote Colet’s lost epistles and engraved them on crystal in her own handwriting. Flaubert’s voice was lettered by a male friend of the artist.
Guilio Cesare Casseri es el autor de un temprano tratado anatómico que ofrece detalles sobre el funcionamiento de la laringe y su papel en la producción de la voz. Este tratado influenció las discusiones sobre la razón por la cual los ventrílocuos podían hablar desde el vientre: si se debía a poderes sobrenaturales o demoníacos, o a que tenían una fisionomía distinta.
Installation photograph, NOT I Throwing Voices (1500 BCE-2020 CE), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2021, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
Giulio Cesare Casseri is the author of an early anatomical treatise that offered detailed accounts of how the larynx functions and its role in the production of the voice. This treatise influenced discussions about whether ventriloquists had supernatural or demonic powers or had a different physiognomy that allowed them to speak from their bellies.
Installation photograph, NOT I Throwing Voices (1500 BCE-2020 CE), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2021, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
Bowl, late 15th century, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by the Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection, gift of Joan Palevsky, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
Para esta comisión, invitamos a Fernández a producir los marcos para seis grabados de Francisco de Goya. La artista diseñó y talló a mano cuatro esculturas que también funcionan como marcos, amplificando aún más el juego ventrílocuo de desplegar voces en el espacio.
Patricia Fernández, Untitled Frames, 2020, courtesy of the artist, commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, © Patricia Fernández, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
For this commission, we invited Fernández to produce frames for six prints by Francisco de Goya. The artist designed and carved four sculptures that double as frames, further amplifying the ventriloquist game of unfolding voices.
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Listen to artist Patricia Fernández discuss this object in depth.
Por muchos años, los museos con un perfil enciclopédico aspiraban a hablar muchas lenguas, retratar una miríada de culturas y representar una historia comprehensiva de la humanidad. Esta tarea imposible se vuelve mucho más útil cuando es entendida como un proceso defectuoso y fragmentario. La leyenda de la torre de Babel explica el origen de las diferentes lenguas como un castigo divino a la ambición humana. Los planes de construir una torre más alta que el cielo colapsaron después de que los constructores comenzaron a hablar en diferentes lenguas.
For hundreds of years, encyclopedic museums have aspired to speak many languages, portray myriad cultures, and represent a comprehensive history of humanity. This impossible task, however, becomes more useful when understood as a flawed, fragmentary project.The legend of the Tower of Babel explains the origin of diverse languages as a divine punishment for human ambition: plans to build a tower taller than the skies collapsed after builders started speaking different languages.
La escena representada en esta fotografía es teatral, reverencial y casi absurda. La cortina al fondo sugiere un escenario donde una obra de teatro llega a su fin. La marioneta es Rene d’Harnoncourt, un curador y marchante que vivía en México. Veinte años después de que se hizo esta fotografía, d’Harnoncourt se convirtió en director del Museo de Arte Moderno en Nueva York, donde desarrolló una visión global para el museo y distinguió sus exhibiciones con diseños reflexivos y teatrales.
The scene depicted in this photograph is theatrical, reverential, and almost absurd. The curtain in the background suggests a stage where a play is coming to an end. The marionette is Rene d’Harnoncourt, a curator and art dealer who was living in Mexico at the time. Twenty years after this photograph was made, d’Harnoncourt became director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he developed a global vision for the museum and distinguished his exhibitions with thoughtful and theatrical spatial designs.