Mercedes Azpilicueta
Cuerpos Pájaros (Body-Bodies), 2018Synchronized three-channel video projection15'
Cuerpos Pájaros (Body-Bodies), raises the question of where the collective body begins to emerge and end. This collective body is in a constant state of transformation, formed by many diverse and demystified bodies, more distorted and affected than the ideal standards of beauty. The work is a synchronized three-channel video installation with a script that consists of three voices: one personal, one historical and one theoretical. These three voices interweave reflections on the act of writing as an emancipatory act; on the affectations of the human figure in the Mannerist art; and on the impressions of a spectator in front of the gestuality of the baroque work from Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith decapitating Holofernes. These narratives are superimposed on a collection of short shots of images showing details of knees, necks, torsos, hairs, lips and arms, collected by the artist in Buenos Aires during the summer of 2018. These images are fragments that instead of being reduced to abstractions or showing the body as an object, present features, gestures and poses full of personality, impossible to adapt to the normative corset of a physical “ideal”.