To write without saying anything Mirtha Dermisache: the difficulty of unlearning
Don’t look for meaning. Although our minds identify her signs as writing, we are unable to decode them. Are we looking at letters, encrypted messages or drawings? Their author, Mirtha Dermisache, assures us that her writing ‘doesn’t mean anything’. In 1966, the Argentine artist published her first book that meant nothing: 500 pages constructed as a strictly visual exercise without any semantic reference. With a distinct freedom and spirit of research, she created a new genre of writing: a ‘language’ of her own that rebelled against logos and the reflected word. Celebrated by Roland Barthes as ‘illegible writings’, her private alphabet challenges us to unlearn or deconstruct language.
