1989-1991

An artist’s book, 300 pages

The Blind Merchant consists of three elements: the complete text of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, a “Parasitical” text responding to the play and 145 drawings. In the book, the Shakespearean text is framed on the left page by the artist’s text, while the drawings appear on the right.

The parasitical annotation adopts Shylock’s vantage point, ands provides a prologue to the play: before becoming a usurer, Shylock was a glass merchant until a pogrom-like incident during which his wife was raped and murdered, and his eyes were gouged. Thus, all the drawings depicting scenes in which Shylock is present on stage are blind drawings, executed with closed eyes.