The Unending Story [Historia sin fin]
1980
20th century
158 cm x 214.7 cm (62 3/16 in. x 84 1/2 in.)
Liliana Porter
(Buenos Aires, 1941 - )
Primary
Object Type:
painting
Artist Nationality:
Latin America, Argentinean
Medium and Support:
Acrylic, silkscreen, drawing, and collage on canvas
Credit Line:
Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, The Barbara Duncan Fund in memory of Rocío Duncan, 1981
Accession Number:
1981.31
Liliana Porter’s art is traversed by a deep concern for language, which shapes works like this one in unexpected ways. Her favorite writer is her compatriot Jorge Luis Borges, known for blurring the line between reality and illusion in his stories. Porter plays with this idea by combining two-dimensional images with three-dimensional objects glued onto the canvas, the latter demanding close observation to be perceived as volumetric. She further challenges our perception of the real by visually quoting another writer, Lewis Carroll. The main character in "Alice in Wonderland" grapples with a confusing dreamlike world she found on the other side of the mirror. Such interest in language also shaped the way Porter arranged objects on the canvas, as if they were a sentence written on a page whose corner lifts slightly near the bottom edge.