the ill-starred one

Brass hinges, brass nails, typewriter film carbon, resin. 12 oak panels: 12 x 18” each. 366 acrylic plates: 3 x 2” each.  Collection of Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas.

The twelve oak panels form four groups of three panels each, hinged onto half-frames which are attached to the wall. The panels can be completely closed to face the wall or opened, thereby displaying 30 – 32 small acrylic plates each which are fastened by hinges to the oak panels. The 366 plates contain text in form of resincoated typewriter film car-bon. The panels must be opened and the plates flipped over to become legible.

Each small plate represents one calendar day. The first plate on the first panel is March 21. The arrangement of plates and panels is in order of the calendardays in a year. Each plate lists two disasters that happened on the same calendar day (not necessarily same year). Specified are: a date, a place, the type of disaster, and a number — the number of deaths.