BUENOS AIRES — Marta Minujin, Argentina's most famous artist, is known for artwork that is both out-sized and outlandish.
Her latest creation might also be described as vertigo-inducing -- a spiraling, 25-meter-tall (82-foot) tower meant to pay homage to the written word.
In the Plaza San Martin, in the heart of the Argentine capital, Minujin has erected her latest work -- "The Tower of Babel" -- built from 30,000 books, most of them donations from some 50 embassies.
"I don't know why we have to have different languages," she says, adding that she sees her mission as an artist as being to "unite all people".
Unlike the thousands of tomes that form the basis of this current massive sculpture, she told AFP "art needs no translation".
An "enfant terrible" of Argentina's art world who has cavorted during her career with the likes of Andy Warhol and Christo, Minujin is a celebrity who has exhibited all over the world.
She has been a mainstay of the country's avant-garde scene since the 1960s, famous for works that speak to the public's artistic sensibility, while at the same time tickling its funny bone.
"It's really amusing to be able to climb up and down a work of art," said Minujin, graced with emblematic white-blonde hair and ever-present sunglasses.
The unveiling this week of the soaring structure is timed to coincide with the Buenos Aires Book fair and the city's role this year as the World Book Capital 2011, a designation conferred by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Minujin, a native of Buenos Aires, where she was born in 1943, still lives and works in the Argentine capital, and her artwork is inspired by the motto that "everything is art".
This latest work makes a thematic reference to an earlier piece of hers, an enormous "Parthenon" of books censured by Argentina's dictatorship.
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