Woodcut reproduction of the woodcut The Fool Blindfolding Justice (1494), reclaimed and maple wood, bracing. Commissioned by Kunstverein Bielefeld for What We Mean By Freedom, 2019-2020

This project focuses on the first known depiction of blindfolded Justice: a woodcut print, thought to be the work of Albrecht Dürer, which first appeared in Sebastian Brant’s 1494 book Narrenschiff (The Ship of Fools). Since the sixteenth century, Justice’s blindness has been taken as a symbol of the court’s neutrality; the goddess cannot see and therefore is impartial to all who come before her. The 1494 woodcut, in which a fool blindfolds Justice from behind, has a drastically different meaning, suggesting the willful mockery and corruption of the legal process. For reasons that should be obvious, it felt important to bring this depiction into the present moment.

Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools) spans two rooms at the bottom of a stairwell in Kunstverein Bielefeld. Visitors first encounter the back of an artificial wood wall. Rounding the corner reveals an optical trick: the wall appears to bisect two rooms of the museum. Carved into a plank in the second room is a copy of the 1494 print. This uninked woodcut, designed to be impressed and reproduced, is a reminder of the origin of blindfolded Justice.