the tamates bride, vanuatu. self-portrait [2003]
the demoiselle d'avignon bride wearing an idoma mask with human hair, nigeria [2005]
laughing girl by vermeer - self-portrait [2007-2009]
Come from forever, who will go off everywhere.
Arthur RIMBAUD,To a Reason.
A CEREMONY OF DISAPPEARANCE
THE STRANGENESS OF THESE FACELESS FACES
TIME, HER ONLY CONTEMPORARY
AWAY FROM BELONGING, EXILING ONESELF FROM ONE’S ORIGINS
OUTSIDE OF THE NATIVE CHARNEL HOUSE
A DEATHLY LIGHT THAT UNCEASINGLY DESTROYS DEATH
IDENTIFYING NOT WITH AN IMAGINARY IDEAL, BUT WITH AN IMMATERIAL IDEA
THE POLYPHONY OF BEING
A FREE SPACE FOR THE PLAY OF TIME
THE UNIQUE IMAGE OF A UNIQUE FIGURE IN THE ANONYMOUS IMPERSONALITY OF THE UNIVERSAL
BEING EVER MORE BY BEING EVER DEEPER IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE SELF
SOMETHING BEYOND WHAT THE IMAGES SHOWS
THE INEXHAUSTIBLE ALLURE OF WHAT LACKS
She smiles, bowing her head, and shoots your way in a clear voice, ‘All that’s not me, that’s what interests me’. What does she mean by that? You haven’t the slightest idea but approve, because you suddenly guess that everything having to do with identity, genealogy, even genetics, that religious and social or familial roots—that all that will at last be short-circuited, denied, overstepped. She also has this turn of phrase, which is quite succinct: ‘Each photograph is a ceremony of disappearance’. Let’s wait for what comes next: ‘My self-portraits are still lifes. What I show is the image of a corpse.’ You immediately see what it’s all about: being and nothingness, the vanity of the image, life and death, and especially getting beyond narcissism.
She speaks as follows: ‘To show doesn’t mean giving us everything to see. To look means seeing that something escapes the gaze, that the image leaves something to be desired.’ She insists, ‘What the gaze sees in the image isn’t what it looks at. It is the lack in the image that captivates the gaze.’ So desire concerns only what is lacking? Yes indeed, that’s it all right. And going on, she explains, ‘A work of art is a symptom that is successful, that is, transformed. Art is what transforms.’ Transformation, that then would be the key word in Kimiko Yoshida’s vocabulary...
[continue reading "All that's not me, by Jean-Michel Ribettes, here]
