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Sin título (Carta), c. 1970

Untitled (Letter), c. 1970
Graphic material, 28.5 x 23 cm

The work of Mirtha Dermisache is conceived as writing. It was Roland Barthes who included her in the category of ‘illegible writings’, to which the artist herself added that her writing ‘doesn’t mean anything’. With an open and original approach, Dermisache created an expressive language that rebels against the logo or word. Although she gives her graphisms a format that the mind recognises as ‘readable’ (letters, books, texts, postcards, etc.), her asemantic or asemic writing raises the challenge of ‘unlearning’ or the deconstruction of language. Her work is aimed at readers willing to interpret it from personal experience and individual hermeneutics.

In the textual universe of her language of signs beyond the logic of the alphabet, the works in the MACBA Collection come under the category of letters. As in all Dermisache’s work, each piece represents its own universe, as if the artist had started from scratch each time. While she divides her universe of signs into ‘illegible texts’ (where the graphisms are similar to those of the manuscripts), ‘incomprehensible texts’ (formal relationships with mathematics) and ‘legible texts’ (drafts of the creation process), in all of them Dermisache exercises an indecipherable gesture associated with drawing and writing. Frequently described as visual poetry, Roland Barthes, referring to the work of Dermisache in 1971, emphasised the ‘extreme intelligence of the theoretical problems related to writing’.


Technical details

Original title:
Sin título (Carta)
Registration number:
5607
Artist:
Dermisache, Mirtha
Date created:
c. 1970
Date acquired:
2017
Status:
On display
Fonds:
MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
Object type:
Graphic material
Media:
Ink on paper
Dimensions:
28.5 x 23 cm (height x width)
Room:
Meier Building, Level 1
Credits:
MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
Copyright:
© Mirtha Dermisache
It has accessibility resources:
No

The MACBA Collection features Catalan, Spanish and international art and, although it includes works from the 1920s onwards, its primary focus is on the period between the 1960s and the present.

For more information on the work or the artist, please consult MACBA's Library. To request a loan of the work, please write to colleccio [at] macba.cat.

If you need a high resolution image of the work, you must submit an image loan request.