#376-79 Corporal
128x168 cm (64x84 cm each panel) | Filler, oak frames
About
I tried to do some simple splits in the wet filler while wearing clogs and a blindfold for this work. I used paper cups as support.
Corporal means something relating to or affecting the body, as in corporal punishment. In most western liberal states, physical discipline has become out of fashion due to the present notion of a split between body and mind. The current ideology declares the body innocent; only the mind can be a criminal and responsible for its actions. The body is blind in the sense of a subjective gaze, and it doesn't have a point of view.
Paper Cups
Paper Cups is a series of paintings with imprints from regular paper cups. The kind you get from fast food places, and the kind that often is used by people begging in the streets. The series takes its starting point in the matter of economic resources and begging as a subversive act in a system of capitalism and neoliberal policies.
It is also about the priority of material conditions in a broader sense, as in historical materialism but also as in gaining agency for demands as a group. For a movement, a protest or an insurrection to become a subject, an agent with the power to act, it needs to ground its ideas in practical solutions, in a psychoanalytical sense to move from the Imaginary to the Symbolic. This entails touching base with the void of the material Real, where pureness of the intent - the initial message, always will get somewhat polluted and distorted.
Sabotages
The shoes worn to produce this work is a modern variant of clogs made in plastic. In French, clogs are called "sabot", which is the basis for the word sabotage. The soft ambience of the bourgeoise was shattered when the working-class entered a room with their wooden shoes. Another reason is perhaps that the workers allegedly threw their clogs into the automatic looms when introduced in France to protest, making them redundant.
In another way, you may also call this work a sabotage (in the sense of a collage or frottage) as it is made by clogs.
Clogs is the shoe of the common people, the shoe of the working-class. Historically made in wood for use in factories and on the fields, but today, healthcare workers widely use the plastic version. It is also popular as leisurewear for the mainstream or the so-called masses.
Res Ipsa
Res Ipsa is a compilation of works made by an act shaping the filler once it is prepared inside the frame. The works thus function as a recording device and give a statement of the event taking place while the filler was still wet.
Res Ipsa is Latin for "the thing itself" and is part of the juridical term "Res ipsa loquitur" (the thing speaks for itself), used when an injury or accident in itself clearly shows who is responsible, such as an instrument left inside a body after surgery.
