Cuentos de Cuentas (Book)

Cuentos de Cuentas brings together six recollections from Carla Zaccagnini’s childhood in Brazil and Argentina in the 1980 that are relayed by a narrator who questions her own ability to adequately remember what happened. Each episode is structured around a specific object—a tent, a jar, a vest, a dollar bill—that is pivotal in enabling secret economic transactions. Even though told with a child-like innocence and detailed attention to the material reality, the stories illuminate a context in which the US dollar dictated the person-to-person cash economy. Ultimately, they bring the reader to ask: How can we really determine value? How can we distinguish what is true from what is false? Zaccagnini’s texts are punctuated by childhood drawings, magazine and press clippings, and photographs from her family archive.

Cuentos de Cuentas is co-published with K. Verlag and first appeared in online installments between January 2021 and March 2022. These episodic publications in turn informed Cuentos de cuentas/ Accounts of Accounting, Carla’s first solo exhibition in the US (April - August 2022).

Carla Zaccagnini was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1973. She currently lives between São Paulo, Brazil and Malmö, Sweden and is a visual artist, professor of Conceptual and Contextual Practices at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and guest curator of the 34th Bienal de São Paulo. Group shows in which she has participated include SPRÅK (Havremagasinet, Länskonsthall, 2020), Shout Fire (Röda Sten Konsthall, Gothenburg, 2018), A Universal History of Infamy (LACMA, Los Angeles, 2017), Carla Zaccagnini and Runo Lagomarsino (Konsthall, Malmö, 2015), Un saber realmente útil (Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2014), Under the Same Sun (Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2014).

She has participated in the 8th Berlin Biennale (Berlin, 2014), the 9th Shanghai Biennale (Shanghai, 2012) and the 28th Bienal de São Paulo (2008). Her recent solo shows include Mañana iba a ser ayer (MUNTREF, Buenos Aires, 2019), You say you are one, I hear we are many (Obra, Malmö, 2019), Histórias feministas: Carla Zaccagnini (MASP, São Paulo, 2015) and Elements of Beauty (Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven / FirstSite, Colchester, 2015).

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