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Art Basel 2018
news

Liste feels the weight of Cuban history

Artist uses exact amount of black ink used to write key parts of constitution for work

José da Silva
14 June 2018
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Reynier Leyva Novo, Weight of the History (2018) Courtesy of El Apartamento

Reynier Leyva Novo, Weight of the History (2018) Courtesy of El Apartamento

The laws of the land have been reduced to their weight in ink in a work by the Cuban artist Reynier Leyva Novo, on the stand of the Havana-based gallery El Apartamento at the Liste fair. The Weight of History (2018) includes books with their pages covered in the exact amount of black ink used to write key parts of the Cuban constitution, including the penal code. The books (in an edition of ten; €8,000 each), come with a USB stick containing the “software that calculates the amount of ink in the constitution”, says the gallery’s director Christian Gundín García. The work was produced and published with help from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, which has acquired a copy.

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