Malena Pizani | An Artist

Malena Pizani
An Artist
Mexico City, Mexico: Gato Negro, 2017
[112] pp., 16.5 x 11.5 cm., softcover
Edition size unknown

Released in December of last year, this book by Argentinian Malena Pizani features more than 1400 single-line descriptions of every conceivable type of artist:


An artist who looks out of the corner of his eye
An artist who looks out of the corner of his eye and also eavesdrops
A mean-spirited artist
A dark-energied artist
A dark-energied who has power
A dark-energied artist who has power and distributes it among other dark-energied artist
An artist who remembers his dreams
An utterly predictable artist
An artist who only paints dogs
An artist who makes art for years without any common threads


"The Spanish language allows for greater gender ambiguity than English does in its use of pronouns. As readers will note, this text offers a list of hyper-specific classifications that cumulatively express enormous variety: "the artist" in question can be, and is, many different artists, encompassing different genders and backgrounds and identities. Both the author and I were initially reluctant to rely in English, on the masculine singular "he" as the grammatical default. This practice has a long and loaded history, and we're both opposed to using the masculine as an umbrella for all voices. However, for the purposes of this book, it still seemed like the easiest and most efficient way to 1) convey the wry, clinical tone of the original text in analyzing "the artist" as a singular specimen, while 2) evoking the still heavily male-dominated nature of the art world as such."

- Translator's note

Available from Printed Matter, here, for $10 US.