Do ut des (I give that you may give back)

2009 - Sculpture (Sculpture)

Mariana Castillo Deball

location: Amsterdam & Berlin
year born: 1975
gender: female
nationality: Mexican
home town: Mexico City, Mexico

Do ut des (2009) is part of an ongoing series of books that Castillo Deball has altered with perforations, starting from the front page and working inward, forming symmetrical patterns when each spread is opened. The books belong to O Mundo dos Museus (The World of Museums), a collection conceived by the Brazilian designer Eugênio Hirsch in the 1970s. More than simply a catalogue of artworks, each offers the reader a promenade through a different world museum and its functioning, starting with photo reportage of the building, its urban landscape and architecture, the management and restoration of works, and visitors walking though the galleries. Collaged images of people alongside artworks indicate the works’ dimensions in relation to the human scale. The act of drilling into different institutional representations is a direct intervention into history itself, inviting us to question its representation. The title refers to a Latin phrase that applies to civil law, roughly translating as “I give that you may give back.” This allusion to a form of exchange, negotiation, and reciprocity applies as much to the relationship between the artist and the audience as to that between the artist and the object. The implication that the artist is giving the viewer something so that she will receive something back demands a level of critical reflection and interaction with the work. With these books, Deball infers that history gives these representations to us so that we can detour from them.


The practice of Mariana Castillo Deball (b. Mexico City, 1975) is centered on intensive research. In weaving together perceived facts and legends, the artist deconstructs how we understand tradition, liberating content from imposed ideological legacies. Mariana Castillo Deball’s collaborative research—in particular in the domain of science, geology, archaeology and literature—is manifested and synthesized into her multimodal sculptural practice. The archive is a significant aspect of the artist’s practice, whereby the research conducted in the creation of her sculptures is culminated, catalogued and preserved. Deball is not only interested in traces of the past, her multidisciplinary approach allows her to study the different ways in which a historical object can be read today.


Colors:



Karachi Series 1 (Chandra Acarya, 7:50pm, 30 August 2008, Ramadan, Karachi)
© » KADIST

Bani Abidi

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Death at a 30 Degree Angle
© » KADIST

Bani Abidi

2012

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America
© » KADIST

Minerva Cuevas

2006

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Sundown (Number Twenty)
© » KADIST

Xaviera Simmons

2019

Xaviera Simmons often employs her own body and collected materials in the service of her photographs and performances...

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¿Quién medirá el espacio, quién me dirá el momento?, 1 (columna alfarero)
© » KADIST

Mariana Castillo Deball

2015

Taking archaeology as her departure point to examine the trajectories of replicated and displaced objects, “Who will measure the space, who will tell me the time?” was produced in Oaxaca for her exhibition of the same title at the Contemporary Museum of Oaxaca (MACO) in 2015...

Karachi Series 1 (Chandra Acarya, 7:50pm, 30 August 2008, Ramadan, Karachi)
© » KADIST

Bani Abidi

2008

The threshold in contemporary Pakistan between the security of private life and the increasingly violent and unpredictable public sphere is represented in Abidi’s 2009 series Karachi ...

Death at a 30 Degree Angle
© » KADIST

Bani Abidi

2012

The perceived effortlessness of power, projecting above experiences of labored subordination is examined in Death at a 30 Degree Angle by Bani Abidi, which funnels this projection of image through the studio of Ram Sutar, renowned in India for his monumental statues of political figures, generally from the post-independence generation...

Hat with photograph
© » KADIST

Hans-Peter Feldmann

The types of objects Feldmann is interested in collecting into serial photographic grids or artist’s books are often also found in three dimensional installations...

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RA Architecture Prize Winner 2023: Shane de Blacam
© » ROYAL ACADEMY

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© » ARTS EQUATOR

Weekly Picks: Indonesia (18 - 24 June 2018) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Indonesia June 18, 2018 Top Picks of Indonesia art events in Jakarta, Ngawi and Bali from 18-24 June 2018 In the small town of Ngawi that is located on the border of Central and West Java, there will be a film screening and discussion of 5 Villages ...

White Fungus
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The Left Hand Can't See That the Right Hand is Blind
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Douglas Gordon

2004

Douglas Gordon’s single-channel video The Left Hand Can’t See That The Right Hand is Blind, captures an unfolding scene between two hands in leather gloves—at first seemingly comfortable to be entwined, and later, engaged in a struggle...

Blind Spencer (Mirror)
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Douglas Gordon

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Anri Sala

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Ghost Games , follows the enigmatic dance of crabs “steered” by a flashlight in the night of darkness of a South American beach...

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¿Quién medirá el espacio, quién me dirá el momento?, 1 (columna alfarero)
© » KADIST

Mariana Castillo Deball

2015

Taking archaeology as her departure point to examine the trajectories of replicated and displaced objects, “Who will measure the space, who will tell me the time?” was produced in Oaxaca for her exhibition of the same title at the Contemporary Museum of Oaxaca (MACO) in 2015...

Mimbres pottery kill hole sequence
© » KADIST

Mariana Castillo Deball

Mariana Castillo Deball’s set of kill hole plates are part of a larger body of work problematizing archeological narratives, and drawing attention to the conservation process and its role in recreating an imagined object...

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Foreigners Everywhere (Italian)
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Chinese New Year red packets: everything you need to know about giving and receiving lai see, from who and when to how much
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