Declaration of the Rights of Woman (1971)
Charles Gaines
American, born 1944
2013
A large pencil-on-paper drawing in which Gaines uses a rule-based, notation-like system to render the words of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman as a regimented field of tiny graphite marks, making a political text visible as a visual score.
From a distance it reads like a pale, handwritten musical score—rows of staves under a spare printed title—while close up the delicate, repeated marks and subtle variations reveal the labor and method behind the transcription.
The piece exemplifies Gaines’s conceptual practice of translating language into formal systems, asking how acts of recording and display shape our perception of historical texts and political claims.
Medium
Pencil on paper
Dimensions
Frame: 86 x 55" (218.4 x 139.7 cm)
Classification
Department
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
1206.2013.5
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
