Map of North America

Description

Abelardo Morell has long been interested in what he calls “symbolic paper”: maps, money, and books, among other forms. Like photographs, maps employ conventions to represent spatial information. In his pictures of maps, Morell often gives these two-dimensional diagrams their own topography, transforming the plans into something akin to what they represent. As he has explained, “It’s important to me to have what I photograph undergo a certain transformation—to become a thing different from what we are used to, to be another version of itself.”

Map of North America

Abelardo Morell

1996

Accession Number

157065

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Dimensions

Image: 46 × 57 cm (18 1/8 × 22 1/2 in.); Paper: 51 × 61 cm (20 1/8 × 24 1/16 in.)

Classification

photography

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund