Bartlebooth monument
2011-2015
Medium
brush and black and brown ink and pencil
Measurements
(a-jjj) 250.8 × 985.5 cm (variable) (overall)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Suzanne Dawbarn Bequest, 2017
© Jorge Méndez Blake
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work
Bartlebooth monument presents the conclusion to an unfinished fictional project described in the novel Life, A User’s Manual (1978) by French writer Georges Perec. One of the protagonists is the millionaire Percival Bartlebooth, who embarks on a life-long project to produce 500 watercolours of ports and beaches during a twenty-year trip around the world. Once completed, Bartlebooth despatches each painting to a master craftsman in Paris to turn it into a jigsaw puzzle. After two decades Bartlebooth returns home and begins to assemble the jigsaws. Once completed, each work is sent back to the port where it was painted and soaked in a solution, whereupon the blank painting is returned to Bartlebooth, leaving no trace of his life’s work. Tragically, Bartlebooth dies while working on a jigsaw, having finished only 438 of the planned 500 puzzles. Méndez Blake’s piece presents the missing sixty-two drawings of ports and beaches, which are in the process of fading into nothingness.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Guadalajara, Mexico
Inscription
(q) printed in ink on label on reverse u.c.: Jorge Méndez Blake (Guadalajara, Mexico, 1974) / Bartlebooth Monument, 2011-2015 / ink, pencil, paper / 50 x 70 cm each / (JMB 277)
inscribed in fibre-tipped pen on label on reverse u.c.: 17/62
printed in red and black ink on label on reverse u.c.: OMR T+ 52.55 | 5511 1179 Plaza Río de Janeiro 54 galeriaomr.com / | 5525 3095 México DF 06700
Accession Number
2016.42.a-jjj
Department
Contemporary Art
Subjects (general)
Cityscapes Concepts and Ideas Literary and Text
Subjects (specific)
bathing beaches beaches coastal landscapes condominiums (built works) literary characters multistorey buildings novels waterfronts
Movements
Contemporary (style of art)