The promotional piece to the left is for Marta Minujín’s latest artistic creation, Torre de Babel (Tower of Babel) 2011, celebrating Buenos Aires’ UNESCO designation as Capital Mundial de Libros 2011 (Book Capital of the World). The exhibit opened May 12 and closed today.
The Tower of Babel, standing seven stories tall, was built in Plaza San Martín with more than 30,000 books donated by embassies, associations and delegations from more than 50 countries, along with individual donations from bookstores and libraries. Of this piece she is quoted as saying, it “is the best work of my life.”
If you’ve forgotten your biblical history, you can read more here, but the fact that these books represent languages from around the world plays an important role in the art.
Marta is a Buenos Aires native and this art follows a similar piece built in December 1983. Then Marta Minujin along with U.S. artist Andy Warhol created a full-scale model of the Parthenon out of books banned by the 1976-83 military dictatorship. “The Parthenon of Books/Homage to Democracy,” as the work was titled, stood for about three weeks.
Climbing up seven floors of metal scaffolding, visitors to the tower hear music composed by Minujin and the voice of the artist repeating the word ‘book’ in scores of languages. The view of Plaza San Martin is exceptional and provides a chance to reflect on how language is an obstacle to understanding yet we share a humanity expressed in art and literature that can transcend it. It also helps to practice conjugating those verbs!
Additional reading: The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentine)
The Los Angeles Times has some nice photos.