Art Basel Miami: ‘Invisibile Heroes’ And Art You Just Can’t See

Artist duo Admir Jahic and Comenius Roethlisberger – better known as ‘Invisible Heroes’ – acquired a massive block of rubber, an eraser purchased by an anonymous Swiss collector from Princess Diana’s early school days for a mere 530 pounds.  Dividing the block into 10 pieces, each artist drew different portraits of Lady Di and Prince Charles with a pencil, later applying the mythical rubber objects to each one and erasing the drawings to reveal faded, diminishing lines of imagery on the portrait.  Thus their representation is more about the inverting of the artistic process than access to the imagery themselves ; these controversial royal figures are celebrated through the production of this art yet destroyed by the very relic that came from Lady Di herself, a symbolic testament to the history of her battle with the media which later resulted in her death.  Entitled ‘For Big Mistakes/Erased Drawings’, a reference to the text on the rubber itself, the drawings produce an ironic resemblance to the truths behind her downfall as well as a mystifying series of what appear to be blank canvases.

photos via Modart

Related links:

• A Brief History of Invisible Art
• Spellbinder Makes Invisible Artwork Appear When You Take a Picture
• The Question of Visibility in Art According to the Theories of Jacques Ranciere
• The Invisible Man: Liu Bolin’s camouflage artwork