JIM SANBORN

Lingua

Any DC art lover will recognize Jim Sanborn’s mysterious totems. His first one, Kryptos (1990), which he made for the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, features four coded texts arranged in a quadrant of panels. (Three of the artist’s four codes have been decrypted, but one still stymies would-be decipherers.) For that piece, he cut letters out of copper using a jigsaw for two and a half years. For his more recent works— which he refers to as “projection cylinders”—he employs waterjets and prototyping technology. Lingua (2003) features four texts that chronicle, among other things, a rendezvous of French fur trappers, as well as a water battle scene reenacted by order of Julius Caesar. “I choose the text, but I offer a selection of texts, and I encourage clients to add something, usually,” Sanborn says. “I have my own fonts that have been stenciled so that the centers of the letters won’t fall out.” Located in the Grand Lobby.