Not All of Me Will Die

A performative installation by David Maroto
Het Wilde Weten / Robert Fruinstraat 35 / Rotterdam
Open: 8–9 January (Saturday–Sunday), 14–16 Jan (Fri–Sun), 21–23 Jan (Fri–Sun), 28 Jan (Fri), 30 Jan (Sun), 12:00–17:00
Please reserve a date > davidmarotostudio@gmail.com

Performance: 29 January, Saturday, 12:00–17:00

Not All of Me Will Die

The original handwritten manuscript of David Maroto’s novella Not All of Me Will Die will be displayed as the central element of an installation, along with mural paintings, drawings, and sculptures that emanate from its narrative. Not All of Me Will Die is a fictocritical novella, a reflection on death, memory, writing, and the desire of posterity.

Posterity works in strange ways, oftentimes by serendipity. Whilst some people live with the obsession of being remembered after death, only to be forgotten anyway, others attain everlasting remembrance without any wish for that to be the case. In spite of themselves, they achieve something so memorable that they’ll leave an impression on future generations. Take, for example, uncle Alejo.

The structure that binds all the pieces of the installation is dependent on narrativity. Narrativity is a quality that consists in being able to inspire a narrative response and can be attributed to a given object regardless of it actually being a narrative. Unravelling the narrativity that connects the different layers of this installation demands a particular mode of interpreting the exhibited body of works, because the content of the work is not a concept but a story. And telling a story requires its own temporality.

At the end of the exhibition, the status of the images and objects that are part of the installation will be altered from artworks to props of a performance, during which David will dictate the contents of the novella to the participants. Following this pre-Gutenberg method, the novella is published and distributed in as many copies as people take part of the performance. Each participant receives a blank book to write in. At the end of the performance, they will have acquired their own handwritten copy, both unique and equal to the others at the same time.

If you wish to participate in the performance, please RSVP: davidmarotostudio@gmail.com

David Maroto is a Spanish visual artist based in The Netherlands. He has an extensive international artistic practice both individually and as part of The Book Lovers collaborative project. He is a PhD from the Edinburgh College of Art, with a research project called The Artist’s Novel: The Novel as a Medium in the Visual Arts, which has been recently published in a two-volume book (Mousse Publishing).