Project Statement
A boundary is not that at which something stops but, the boundary is that from which something begins its presencing. Martin Heidegger
Footnotes, relegated to the bottom of the page, live a life of marginalization and exclusion. They are defined by their subordinated position to the text. The borderline that divides the lower level of the page diminishes their status. While their placement may make them appear to be optional, dismissing them would be rejecting equally important narratives that may introduce a new train of thought, a suppressed narrative, or information that could not be included in the main text.
Write White is a book of footnotes appropriated from the essay “Parler Blanc(he).” Here, the dominant text is erased, creating a void, empty white space; the incidental notes, embedded in the margins, shine forth in the absence. The geography of the page is disrupted, thus inverting the perceived hierarchy. The footnotes break from the single voice and become something other than they were, a living, mutating entity.
Title note: The essay “Parler Blanc(he)” examines the phrase “speak white” as a metaphor and as a racist slur, as well as the history of the phrase, the implications of appropriating the word white in a metaphor and the intrinsic metaphoric nature of language. It also investigates the history of the word white—at once a hue and also a symbol of racial difference—and asks which meaning has the upper hand and why.
Write White is a play on words and highlights the difference between speaking and writing, a philosophical theme addressed by Jacques Derrida in his essay “White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy.”
Exhibition: Making Out, Spring 2016, Dfbrl8r Gallery, Chicago
Related works: “Parler Blanc(he),” and One must always ask what would Derrida say
Collections: The Joan Flasch Artists’ Books Collection School of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Getty Research Institute, Special Collections, The Franklin Furnace Artists’ Books Collection, NY, The Museum of Modern Art, FF artist Book Collection, NY
Size: 8” x 51/2”, 38 pages
Printed at Cushing Printers Chicago, digital offset printed on white matte paper.
Available from:
Printed Matter, New York www.printedmatter.org
Boekie Woekie, Amsterdam www.boewoe.home