Catherine Wagner

Lot #75
Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela, trans/literate, 2013
Archival Pigment Print (diptych with braille)
49.125 x 21.75 in.
Edition 1 of 5
Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco

About the Artwork

Catherine Wagner’s process involves the investigation of what art critic David Bonetti calls “the systems people create, our love of order, our ambition to shape the world, the value we place on knowledge, and the tokens we display to express ourselves.” In Wagner’s series trans/literate, continuing her investigation of cultural archives that use unique systems to transfer knowledge, volumes of braille texts are presented as diptych typologies: an image of the closed book on the left is presented with its accompanying open pages and embossed braille on the right. Braille has remained a constant, unchanged language since its invention in 1834; books in general have long been fetishized as tactile, almost sensual objects, a context transcending the world of the blind. In a literal sense, the growing prevalence of auditory materials is a harbinger of reading itself entering a retreat into history and memory. 

In 2001, Wagner was named one of Time magazine’s Fine Arts Innovators of the Year. Her work is represented in major collections including the de Young Museum, San Francisco; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; SFMOMA; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, among others.

Retail Value: $18,000