Associated with plagiarism, theft, and the use of a supposed “original” in front of which one would have to kneel and pray, the act of copying is often taken to the dungeon of reprehensible behavior. The copy is a forbidden fruit, a flower of evil (and of the least effort), a degraded mirror. Fake as a mother-in-law’s kiss. This is how it turns out, at least for those who think in terms of black and white, of substances and accidents, and this is how the copy is read in certain artistic and social spheres.
This is not the case of the artist and writer from Córdoba Leticia Obeid. His Gallery of printsa collection of short essays, travels through and illuminates a galaxy of versions, covers, replicas, quotes without quotes, imitations and remakes that are plotted to give pulse to what we call culture, art, but also to a set of actions linked to that that we call life.
Starting from his own practice in the field of video and writing (his work Dictations, for example, included copying by hand the “Letter from Jamaica” by Simón Bolívar, a document of surprising relevance), Obeid matches the map of the copy with the map of existence. We learn by copying. We live by copying. The copy is as ubiquitous as the mycelium.
The gallery includes images, movies, voices, music, writings, gestures: versions of king kongthe Mexican dubbing industry that caressed the ears of several generations, karaoke, Taylor Swift’s recapture of her own re-recorded albums, ghosts and mediums, the twisted learning of hip movements in Arab dance classes, dogs that They seem replicated.
The artist frequently inserts herself into the catalogue, giving it a delicious autobiographical whisper. In the entry “Gallery of copies”, which gives its name to the book and which includes images of handwritten texts (by Mario Levrero, Lewis Carroll, Alfonsina Storni, Louis May Alcott, the author of Little Women), notes: “The first time I tried to write something, I think I was eight or nine years old, I started with a description of four sisters, one of whom had very beautiful hands and was called Margaret. I was immediately censored for being a copyist.”
To copy is to surrender, to rub oneself. A delicate gesture is the way in which Obeid’s collection of essays allows itself to be pierced, inviting other voices (transcripts?) into the conversation, fraying the rigid idea of authorship. Luis Obeid remembers the tasks of falsifying identity documents that the Sabino Navarro column, split from Montoneros, carried out in the early 1970s. Ana Gallardo wipes the cloth with the mandates and patriarchal dust that cover the artistic system . Laura Benech x-rays the NFT scene and the possibility of certifying copies in the digital world. Fátima Pecci Carou, an artist who was unjustly accused of plagiarism, of copying, explains her appropriationist work on manga.
Defecting from the commandment that says that copying is not valid is an operation sustained in a thesis. This thesis emphasizes that copying, far from taking advantage, is a loving method of delivery and search through touch, contact. A caress, like that of pencil on paper, to reinvent what already exists.
Copy gallery. Letica Obeid. Ripio Editora. 168 pages. $18,500.
