Anna Maria Maiolino: Articulations and Translations of and in Anthropophagy

In the short story, ‘The Library of Babel’ (1941), Jorge Luis Borges imagines a library so vast that it is all encompassing. Its architecture consists of superimposed hexagonal galleries. These are connected by a spiral staircase that cuts across the centre of the entire structure. The endless library holds all possible combinations of the letters of all alphabets, whether the languages are extinct, currently in use or yet to emerge. This random collection of letters is compiled in standard-size volumes, displayed in no particular or known order. All known books, whether based on fact or fiction, or yet to be written, are interspersed amongst an inordinate number of nonsensical compilations. 2 The library is absolutely dysfunctional, since its totality denies the possibility of both specificity and order, which must always be deferred, cast to the field of speculation.

This essay is included in a retrospective exhibition catalogue on the artist Anna Maria Maiolino, at the Contemporary Art Pavillion in Milan. The exhibition inaugurated in March 2019.