The first comprehensive study of Ricardo Basbaum’s diagrams, cataloguing a body of work that has been integral to his artistic practice. In turn, the book offers an invaluable resource for anyone engaging with non-linear thinking and compositional work.

In Basbaum’s own words he takes the diagram as a ‘tool for intervention (…) a sort of drawing (or visual poem) that mediates the dynamic flow between words and images – discursive and non-discursive spaces – or literary and plastic spaces’.



Produced as a result of the artist’s exhibition at the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporáneo (2013), Diagrams, 1994 – ongoing brings a survey of the diagrams created and exhibited by Ricardo Basbaum in recent years, both as autonomous pieces or part of installations and other forms of action. In his own words, Basbaum takes the diagram as a “tool for intervention (…) a sort of drawing (or visual poem) that mediates the dynamic flow between words and images – discursive and non-discursive spaces – or literary and plastic spaces, etc”.

Three essays by the artist are included here, followed by extensive documentation of the GCAC exhibition, and a large selection of his diagrams. Contributors include Guy Brett, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Emily Pethick, Bina Choi, Cecília Cotrim, Monika Szewczyk, Renata Marquez, Luiz Cláudio da Costa, Santiago Garcia Navarro, Bojana Piskur, Dieter Roelstraete, Francisco Ali-Brouchoud, Brandon LaBelle and Daniela Mattos, whose texts were assembled in the shape of a collective-conversation, where topics around diagram, alterity, group practice, temporality and affect are discussed in direct relation to the work of Ricardo Basbaum.