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Indocumentalisimo (2010)

Indocumentalisimo (2010)

Charles Gaines
American, born 1944
2013
A tall, pencil-on-paper drawing in which Charles Gaines converts musical notation into a precise, rule-driven field to probe how documents and systems produce meaning.
What hits you first is the page-length repetition — faint staves and tiny, meticulously drawn notes arranged in neat rows so regular they feel like a printed score, yet subtle inconsistencies reveal the slow, human hand behind the system.
Working within conceptual and systems-based art, Gaines uses musical notation here to link language, documentation, and authority, showing how translating experience into formal codes shapes what counts as record or proof.
Medium
Pencil on paper
Dimensions
Frame: 96 3/4 x 55" (245.7 x 139.7 cm)
Classification
Credit
Acquired through the generosity of Jill and Peter Kraus, Jerry I. Speyer and Katherine G. Farley, and The Friends of Education of The Museum of Modern Art
Accession
1206.2013.4
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
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