Massa Confusa

Massa Confusa is a combinatorial codex that catalogues João Maria Gusmão’s recent photographic finds, with a text by the artist and faithful reproductions of these works.

The object of Massa Confusa‘s attention is Gusmão’s personal inventory of Japanese-inspired Chawan tea bowls by ceramicist Victor Harris. For over half a millennium, these bowls have been an integral part of the Japanese tea ceremony, serving both as an instrument for presenting aromatic drinks and as a metonymy for the ritual’s moral geometry, as a meditative cult of the imperfect. As such, each copy of Massa Confusa is, to all intents and purposes, unique! In the spirit of reckless invention, the artist and designer Ana baliza devised a semi-random system of signatures, in which queer requests were folded in both directions and assembled in stochastic combinations.

Publisher: Mousse Publishing

ISBN: 9788867496068

Publication date: 2023

Format: Softcover