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

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
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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...

One Minute To Act A Title: Kim Jong Il Favorite Movies
© » KADIST

Mario Garcia Torres

2005

Mario Garcia Torres films a game of Charades among professional actors guessing the former North Korean dictator’s favorite Hollywood films...

Nachbau
© » KADIST

Simon Starling

2007

Invited in 2007 to the Museum Folkwang in Essen (Germany), Simon Starling questioned its history: known for its collections and particularly for its early engagement in favor of modern art (including the acquisition and exhibition of works by Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Matisse), then destroyed during the Second World War, the museum was pillaged for its masterpieces of ‘degenerate art’ by the nazis...

Karachi Series 1 (Ken DeSouza, 7:42pm, 25th 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 ...

Hermit Crab Project
© » KADIST

Charwei Tsai

2008

Charwai Tsai’s photograph documents her Hermit Crab Project installation upon the construction site of gallery Sora in Tokyo...

Interrupted Passage
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Julio Cesar Morales

2008

The video Interrupted Passage presents a performance Morales staged in the former home of Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, a mid-nineteenth-century Mexican general serving in California...

The American War
© » KADIST

Harrell Fletcher

2005

The American War , which takes its title from the Vietnamese term for what Americans call the Vietnam War, has toured the United States extensively with the goal of presenting a Vietnamese perspective of that history...

Swimming in Rivers of Glue
© » KADIST

Julieta Aranda

2016

The video Swimming in rivers of Glue is composed of various images of nature, exploring the themes of exploration of space and its colonization...

Espectacular cortina
© » KADIST

Pia Camil

2012

Camil has made numerous paintings and photographs of halted projects along Mexico’s highways (she calls them “highway follies”), and of abandoned billboards that look like theater curtains dramatizing failed capitalist strategies...

Untitled (Ticket Roll)
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Gabriel Kuri

2010

Gabriel Kuri has created a series of works in which he juxtaposes perennial and ephemeral materials...

Sentimentite (Invasion of Ukraine 38/100, from Chapter 4: Reshaping World Order)
© » KADIST

Agnieszka Kurant

2022

For Sentimentite Agnieszka Kurant collaborated with Justin Lane, CEO and Co-Founder of CulturePulse, to gather global sentiment data that has been harvested from millions of Twitter and Reddit posts related to 100 seismic events in recent history...

Placebo VIII
© » KADIST

Agnieszka Kurant

2018

Agnieszka Kurant’s Placebo VIII brings together a series of imaginary pharmaceuticals invented within the fictional narratives of literature and film...

Versions
© » KADIST

Oliver Laric

2012

Oliver Laric’s video Versions is part of an ongoing body of work that has continued to evolve and mutate over time...

Sundown (Number Twenty)
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Xaviera Simmons

2019

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

Adaptando la Carta #1, #2, #3, #4, #5
© » KADIST

Fabiola Torres-Alzaga

2013

Fabiola Torres-Alzaga plays with magic, illusion, and sleight-of-hand, fabricating installations, drawings, and films that toy with our perceptions...

Untitled (Set of Six Drawings)
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Adrian Villar Rojas

2012

Based on historical prophecies and fantasy, the artist creates apocalyptic scenarios that posit an enigmatic world plagued by social, political, and environmental upheaval...