Cartographies of Clark, Mendieta and Woodman: from the artist body to the body without organs - performance, performativity and deleuze

Abstract

The objective of the research is to think contemporary understandings of representation, performance and performativity by means of the study of three artists whose works have shaken traditional concepts of art: Lygia Clark, Ana Mendieta, and Francesca Woodman. Their works have opened up fundamental questions about the nature of the aesthetic experience, the spectator's role, the relations between subject/object and art/life, as well as the problem of representation and of presence in the art work and in performance. Due to the liminal character of these artists' work, which emphasize processes and relations, continuous experimentation and variation, the research will establish a dialogue between the artistic practices of Clark, Mendieta and Woodman and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, exploring the numerous philosophical, political and psychoanalytic possibilities of his work for contemporary art theory and criticism. The works of Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Luce Irigaray, Hélène Cixous, Rose Braidotti, Mikhail Bakhtin, Merleau-Ponty and critics such as Rosalind Krauss, Amelia Jones, Guy Brett and Griselda Pollock, among others, also are important references for the theoretical research. (AU)