Encyclopedia Britannica . 1969
‘My work with “erasure” started in 1964, when I began using black India ink to strike through great classics of world literature – from Dante’s Divine Comedy to Shakespeare’s tragedies – and a variety of brochures and newspaper articles. Then, between the late 1960s and early 1970s, I went on to tackle the monuments of universal knowledge: the Enciclopedia Treccani, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopédie Larousse, etc. My purpose was not to destroy the word, but to preserve it, by interrupting the way in which it was emptied of meaning and significance through its communication by the media.
Emilio Isgrò
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