Missing Limb

27.02.2013 - 16.03.2013

Lust Gallery, Wien / Österreich

“an object that is simple identical to itself lacks any reality” Hans Bellmer

Object- subject: These terms are related to discourses of power, domination and recognition. A closer examination of Bellmers work might give us also the possibility to escape this often crudely simplified dichotomic vicious cycle (f -f) of just“(re)locating the phallus”.

1933 Bellmer refused to contribute “useful” work to the Third Reich, by putting all his energy in his “resistance through perversion”, as the Surrealists called it.... What Bellmer produced, are not mere objects, they are “Simulacra”, as Klossowski would name them: Also we cannot read them just as reality (as they are sometimes considered in naïve fallacy by some of his critics) or its negativity. They belong neither to the world of the subject nor to the realms of the object: These works are intermediary, a substitute for an impossible relationship to the Other.

Bellmer, obviously influenced by the ideas of the psychologist Paul Schilder, was fascinated by the idea of the manipulation of the body scheme, and examined the potential of sexual desire towards the Otherness and obscenity (That what is repulsed from society) as powerful means for his project.

The exhibition displays interventional pieces of Markus Proschek, which relate as well to the idea of the “Simulacrum”, as they create a context for the controversial reception of Bellmers original works, which are displayed in the gallery rooms simultaniously.

Bernadette Anzengruber was invited for a collaboration work, in which the artists examine the possibilities to dissolve the border between object and subject by the means of somatic transfer.

[Quelle: www.thelustgallery.com]