1:1

In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers’ Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars.

— Jorge Luis Borges, Partial Enchantments of the Quixote, 1946

Inspired by Borges’ tale on the pitfalls of representation, 1:1 presented works drawn together by a shared interest in the use of the one-to-one scale. The results, however, were not faithful or illusionistic renditions of their subjects. Instead the exhibition raised questions about the asymmetrical relationships between subjects and their representations, and the acts of translation that govern not only the making of a work in a particular medium, but also our perception. In 2006, it was felt that investigating such processes was all the more relevant as new technologies, such as the Internet and Global Positioning System, became an integral part of our lives.

All works in 1:1 were shown for the first time in the UK and, with the exception of Bertolo’s drawings and Vitone’s prints, were created specifically for Kettle’s Yard.