Felipe Ehrenberg:
Codex Aeroscriptus Ehrenbergensis

Collaborators: Mizraim Cardenas

The Codex Aeroscriptus Ehrenbergensis, a visual score of iconotropisms (Codex) is a book object published in 1990 by the artist Felipe Ehrenberg that adopts innovative techniques and new means of reproduction.

In this research work we will approach the Codex through the concept of artist’s book, which opens many questions to the viewer, why is it presented in that way?, what does its content mean?, how can we read it?

For Martha Helión, the artist’s book proposes a reflection on the book and language. The accordion form of the Codex recalls the pre-Columbian codices called amoxtlis and the role of the artist returns to that of the tlacuilo, artist-scribe. It is a return to pre-Columbian writing and the image as a word. But its greatest richness is in the images that make up its interior and the story it tells us.

From this arises the possibility of interpreting the interior of the Codex through narratology.

The Codex shows a semiotic structure that is revealed through its materiality and the use of text and image as narrative forms, resulting in a representation of the artist’s personal memory, but also of a certain era.

This work consists mainly of pointing out the implicit and explicit narrativity within this work, which will allow us to make a deep reading of it. To achieve this, the first two chapters make a historiographical journey where we approach the life and work of Felipe Ehrenberg as a conceptual artist, but also as a neologist, an artist who experimented with various alternative media including the artist’s book and performance.

Felipe Ehrenberg was a conceptual artist whose relationship with artist’s books is deep, since he not only promoted editorial practice, but also gave seminars and workshops, but he also created many of them himself, being a fundamental part of his artistic heritage.