I became interested in the markings of the Achatinella shells because they seemed to me as a form of writing. These tree snails –Achatinella for Hawaii, Liguus for the Caribbean Islands and the Florida Everglades– are thought to record the events in their lives through a sequence of different bands of color produced by their genetic lines, environment, weather variations and feeding habits: like an autobiographical diary. I began gathering these shells in the Everglades, where I bought them in small towns and Seminole fairs. From dozens of these shells, I selected the twenty six most distinct, assigned them a letter of the alphabet, from A to Z, and, thinking of Charles Darwin’s horseback travels, I wrote the first sentence:
MAN ON HORSEBACK
Leandro Katz, Notes, 1982 - The Judas Window, installation, Whitney Museum of American Art