Representações do corpo (IX)

David Nebreda (Espanha, 1952)

Auto-retratos (2000)

Despite the strain which they appear to place upon conventions of representability, viewing and experience, however, Nebreda's images bear a promise of reification. The bodies appear to merge into a single body, and that body, it seems, is that of David Nebreda, an identification apparently consecrated in the work's title. Nebreda is seen both as the author of the work and as the single biographical subject which appears within it, as though the identification of physical resemblance between the bodies depicted were a guarantee of a single self present in multiple images and in the texts which accompany them. Inscribed within Nebreda's project is a vital need to examine such an identification in view of the problematic representability of the bodily practices of Autoportraits: the uncertain relationship of the physical "act" and its "medium" is a prime concern in the argument which follows. The "subject" of Autoportraits is (at least) twofold, slipping between the practices of modification to which the body is subjected and the photography of that modification. Viewing gestures from the latter to the former: in the light of the all-too transparent evidence of bodily damage and pain, we enquire into the conditions and development of the photographed body. "How?" and "why?" are essential modalities of viewing Autoportraits. In practice, they invoke a promise of biographical reification which proves to be drastically undercut.

David Houston Jones

Até ao fim do mês de Agosto, aproveita-se a canícula e os corpos mais descobertos para dar a ver (e a pensar) o corpo como matéria de criação artística. A escolha não será certamente representativa de um estudo do corpo através da arte, mas serve para olhar o corpo como mais do que mera massa. Ou talvez não. Primeiro apresentam-se propostas de mulheres, para depois se escolherem propostas masculinas. O corpo, como a arte o vê e representa. Sugestões, comentários, referências, outros nomes podem ser enviados para o mail ou deixados na caixa de comentários. Até ao fim de agosto n'O Melhor Anjo, dá-se ao corpo o espaço materializável.