I have contributed a text to a new publication called Seeing Bodies by artist Belén Cerezo. Seeing Bodies gathers Belén Cerezo's most recent artistic research that translates to the visual arts some of the main features of the unclassifiable and fascinating literary work of Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector (1920-1977). Cerezo is interested in Lispector’s affirmation of life and her questioning of binary thinking, and crucially, in how she writes with the body. The title of this publication, Seeing Bodies, is a reference to the work of philosopher and phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty and it attempts to grasp how Cerezo's work explores a gaze that is not detached from the body, but sees with and through the body.
This book focuses on two works: Viviendo el día (Living the Day) (2018) and A Pool of Light (2019), that extend from Cerezo's artistic investigation and that stage a transdisciplinary encounter between reading, filming and installation practices. Seeing Bodies is structured in two sections: the first one carefully gathers visual documentation of Cerezo's works, and the second one is composed of three texts by invited contributors: ‘Lighting the Reading: A conversation between Belén Cerezo and Maria Ptqk thinking-with Clarice Lispector, Donna Haraway and María Puig de la Bellacasa’, ‘Being in the World, Being in the Image’ by Sergio Martínez Luna and ‘Touched by a Lighter Sensitivity; or, On How Not to Break the Egg’ by Emma Cocker. Seeing Bodies is designed by Gorka Eizagirre and has been funded by the Culture Department, Basque Government.
Below is an extract from my text, ‘Touched by a Lighter Sensitivity; or, On How Not to Break the Egg’.
"[...] The artist has a job to do, a role to perform. An attempt is made to resist resolution, not to allow the work to become too quickly fixed into definitive form. This is not to privilege the process above the product, but rather to dispense of these categories altogether, since here they no longer serve. The work of art is the work of art. What is encountered is the endeavour of practice, where the means are not separable from the end. The working of the work (its moments of epiphany and revelation) can be unpredictable, unforeseeable in advance. Known only when seen, recognisable only when found. Necessarily then, the artist proceeds somewhat blindly, in the absence of a clear plan. Yet, this is not to say that artistic work is vague or imprecise, unthinking or impulsive. Rather, because she does not yet know what she is searching for, the artist must remain vigilant and alert, attentive and receptive to the possibilities within every instant. Too strong her intent and she misses the kairos. [...]
The work of the artist might well begin in the absence of a clearly defined question or place to start. Yet, this is not to say that she sets out from nothing — from blank slate or empty stage — for there is always a before. Still, she ventures from where she finds herself, at this moment, here-and-now. Artistic process involves a reciprocal relation between thinking and making — the edges where one starts and the other begins can be difficult to discern. Thinking-making — a complex relation, from com- with, together, and plectere meaning to weave, to braid, entwine. Making-thinking. Which comes first … the chicken or the egg? This question speaks of a desire to differentiate cause from effect; moreover, to establish these relations within a chronological timeframe. It can seem that causes come first, whilst effects necessarily follow. Resistant to the sequential logic of this-follows-this, the conundrum of the chicken and egg refers to the interweaving of a mutually dependent relation. There is no originary cause, since each is dependent on the other for its coming-into-existence. Likewise, one might consider the relation between artistic thinking and making, even between artist and art. As the artist works to create the conditions for artistic practice, in turn, the practising of artistic work shapes her subjectivity, her way of being in the world. Art and artist are thus radically co-constitutive: each draws the other into being, affirmation of a mutual bringing-into-life".
