Black marble
12.2 x 32.8 x 22.8 cm


In the work of Iran do Espirito Santo, nothing is what you actually see. His highly conceptual and mostly ironic pieces of art seem like visual puzzles without aiming for solutions. Espirito Santo's art is minimal and deals with issues of structure, design, place, surface and material. Through sculptural procedures the ordinary object gets an art object. Within this process of transformation the use of industrial materials and reductionist strategies function as counterweight. Things we are quite familiar with seem functionless or even appear in a ghosty way. Ambiguity plays a central role in this work as it does in almost all of the artist's works.

In Black Box, a marble box which is identical in technique and dimensions with his works "White Box" 2003 and "Grey Box" 2003, colour provides a key to the interpretation of the work in its individuality and a clue about its content.


*1963 in Mococa, Brazil | Living and working in São Paulo, Brazil