The Blind Merchant, 1989 – 1991

The Blind Merchant is an artist book consisting 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 page. The parasitical text not only adopts Shylock’s viewpoint, but also provides a prologue to the play, and a history to Shylock: before becoming a usurer, Shylock was a glass merchant until a pogrom-like incident during which his wife was raped and murder, 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. The Blind Merchant was published in 2016, and belongs in the permanent collection of Centre Pompidou.

The Blind Merchant, images from the Prologue and Act I.