concepción 8
Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya,
Libros de Artista / Artist Books
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WORK SAMPLE / PIEZAS
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-The Reason of Images ("La raison des images")​
​Wall installation bringing together four artist books of different construction (sewn case bound, hard cover drum leaf, sewn pamphlet, deconstructed) and instruments for the audience to perceive each book through a different body sense (binoculars, stethoscope, tube transmitting smell, gloves). Through an interplay of materialities (an embedded smoking pipe, human hair and cannabis leaves forming pipes on the pages, edible paper, orange scent imbued materials, letterpress variations of the phrase ´Ceci n´est pas une pipe´) – thus referencing the image and the writing of René Magritte´s famous painting The Treason of Images – the work invites the public to reflect on messages, meanings and representation and as they move through different iterations of the book and different modes of perception.
Part of the "Making Sense of the Senses" 2016 Exhibition at the Center of Book Arts, New York and the 2017 Puerto Rican Institute of Culture's Muestra Nacional de Arte.
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-S. Anthony and the Child
Card printed on letterpress with Iconographic image (linoleum) on one side and text of attributes and prayer to Saint Anthony on the other (type). In conjunction with wet mount taxidermy preparation of octopi with statuary plaster heads contained in a crystal jar.
Exhibited at: La Muestra Nacional de Arte del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (2015); and the preamble installation to the theatrical project ¨Hagiographies¨ at Pregones Theathre, New York (2015), and at the Center of Fine Arts, Santurce, Puerto Rico (2017).
-Los interdictos (Interdicted)
A performance by Aravind Adyanthaya as part of Paseo del Libro book fair event in Río Piedras, Puerto Riico, 2018. The artist sequentially stamps the word “No” on all the pages of various selected books during 10 hours. The audience can join the action. Exploring themes of censorship, cultural cancellation and the valuation of books.
-The Story of Uma (Who Could Remember Future Lives)
Interactive installation. In an enclosed space, an audience member is invited to read an artist book (structured as round pages contained in a 32mm film metal can). The text narrates the story of Uma, a girl in an orphanage in India, who becomes aware of other dimensions of reality. The format of the writing switches from that of a story to that of a film script. As the person reads, a camera catches her/his/their image and projects it to a blank canvas in another space where audience members are encouraged to use the projection as a guide to produce drawings of the person reading.
Featured at individual Adyanthaya exhibition at Casa Cruz de la Luna, San Germán, Puerto Rico, 2019.
Access the text in Spanish of Uma's story at:
“La historia de Uma o Vishvarupa (capaz de rememorar vidas venideras)” - Claridad
-Forging my Signature at Different Ages
Installation. An interplay on the themes of growing and identity incorporating pages on developmental physiology and pathology from a medical dictionary, letterpress printing and embossing of my capital initial (‘A’), and calligraphic attempts to imitate the ways I signed in the past. The papers are displayed on a lightbox. At its base, a minuscule text is contained in water. It presents instructions on how to forge one’s own signature at different stages of one’s life. With time, organic and crystalline forms grow in the water and its proximity.
