Article 29 - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (English version)

This piece is part of a collection of 30 xylographs, produced by the multimedia artist Otávio Roth (1952-1993), that graphically express the content of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). The series took two years to reach completion, with each piece printed on handmade paper created by the artist himself. Driven by the desire to democratize access to the Charter, Otávio Roth synthesized its message in graphic pieces that facilitate the understanding and memorization of the Charter’s content.

Roth was the first living artist invited to exhibit at the United Nations. His prints have been on permanent display at UN headquarters in New York, Geneva and Vienna since 1981. In addition to the English series, the artist produced other series in Japanese, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian and Danish, using techniques as diverse as crayon, watercolor and pulp painting.

About Article 29
Article 29 states that the corollary of rights is duty: we all have a duty to other people and must protect their rights and freedoms. Fernand Dehousse, the Belgian representative to the United Nations during the drafting of the UDHR, said that Article 29’s first paragraph “quite properly established a sort of contract between the individual and community, involving a fair exchange of benefits”. Article 29 also states that the rights are not unlimited. If they were, social balance and harmony would be impossible. It seeks to link the exercise of rights to the interests of the world community, which the United Nations was created to represent in 1945.