THE STORY OF THE BODY
An object is the topic that we make of it. We could say the phrase “Physique” as an illustration, and picture it depicted in a sure method, inside sure limits. This picture of a physique could fall inside sure aesthetic parameters which were established by educational expectations or by way of the physique in performances. Nonetheless, all it takes is for us to expertise the physique itself in a brand new trend of depiction, or a collection of progressively altered variations, for our supposed concept to alter. That object turns into a cipher rendering a loaded topic outlined by its look. Like an object that’s muted after which obscured both by a deepening darkness or by immense distance, we should comprehend the qualities that make it essential earlier than it fades from view.
Invoice Durgin challenges us to know our bodies, and their place within the act of wanting. Durgin treats the physique as his canvas reasonably than his topic. He has been creating altering views of the physique for a decade: beginning with dramaturgical mis-en-scenes; transferring on to ones through which the physique exclaims its innate alienness, to extra formal mixtures of physique elements in extremis performed towards totally different coloured backgrounds, made by way of plinths, that body the nameless viscera. Extra lately, Durgin commingles backgrounds with our bodies, erasing them or making them appear muted or mutated by the restricted means we could have for perceiving them. In these images magnificence and need spar with each other. They compel us to look away from a central determine that pulls the attention. If we glance again to his early artistic improvement, we will understand how he was motivated to seek out new methods of taking a look at our bodies, even when it meant altering the our bodies themselves. Unusual our bodies in atypical conditions might solely be taken to this point, as a result of they needed to inhabit particular psychological narratives. Even when twisted into perverse poses, or seen partially, what remained fixed was that they belonged to individuals. Durgin didn’t wish to current something resembling a conventional narrative. He needed to excavate layers of which means from the looks of our bodies. On this he could have taken sure esthetic cues from historic precursors reminiscent of Paul Outerbridge and Man Ray, who each offered extremely formalized photos that used the physique for its presence and as a receptacle for the discharge of sexual stress. This was likewise achieved by Hans Bellmer, although by take away, utilizing objects resembling our bodies along with actual our bodies. To create an esthetic radically estranged from narrative, it turns into essential not solely to stake sure claims, however to focuses maniacally upon a single concept or object that’s not philosophically intransigent; It could possibly change minutely when the artist wants to change perspective. The physique’s factuality turns into fictionalized; its notion alters its very cloth. It ceases to supply merely useful or erotic roles, however merges these with no matter else is aesthetically at hand.
Durgin’s first radical transfer as an artist offered our bodies as denatured plinths; having eliminated with a surgical precision all the small print that denoted idiosyncrasy. What remained was the self-evidence of the physique with utility and sensuousness extracted. The alienness of those reductive our bodies tasks an erotism that’s connected much less to the physique itself than the eye we’re accustomed to giving it, and it’s a measure of this fascination that these retain. They’re abject variations of full our bodies, chilling reminders that with none of the traits that make us every particular person, we’d nonetheless exist like a slug or an anemone. Such pure factualness pushes us to appreciate the true nature of what it means to be human. They reference historical Greek sculptures, which although fragmentary after the wear and tear and tear of millennia, are nonetheless held up not solely as examples of immortal inventive imaginative and prescient but in addition as idealized variations of human existence. Why ought to we settle for a fragmentary best irrespective of when, or by whom, it was made?
The second transfer brings sensuality and mise-en-scene again into his figures. His previously abject our bodies now mine an energetic erotism. They’re given lengthy, lustrous heads of hair, and the areas into which they’re positioned enlarge the erotic and dramatic. They’re accompanied with scenic objects or supplies that carry a high quality of mise-en-scene, and generally the pictures are break up into diptychs. They’re nonetheless narratively shorn of company. We really feel one thing about them, however not for them, as they’re solely a stab within the path of dramaturgy, and don’t fulfill the calls for for an precise story.
The third transfer factors particularly to formal qualities which can be sure up within the dichotomy of creation and destruction, or Eros and Thanos, love and demise. However once more, with Durgin it’s not precise our bodies which can be having both achieved to them, besides perceptually through using objects to obscure and fragment them, giving us the start of what is going to later come to be absolutely realized in a while. Per the primary transfer, not one of the separate works are given particular person titles, however are every meant to seamlessly indicate the identical psychological message. One is supposed to expertise every picture as a broadening of the diploma of which means imposed upon the viewer, like an ongoing montage with framed interruptions, like a stream of consciousness narrative that but should endure the separation of pages, with the interruption in consciousness transferring from one web page to the following would require. Relying upon how extremely one turns into emotionally and aesthetically related to the sum complete of photos as view contiguously, will make sure that a powerful impact is achieved.
The fourth transfer repeats using surrogates. In that collection, the accompanying “nonetheless life” for probably the most half kind diptychs, through which the non-body picture is an upright reasonably than a landscape-oriented {photograph}. On this collection the nonetheless life turns into a correct surrogate, creating an elliptical train in wanting. The opposite main distinction between these collection is exemplified by the precise surrogate photos, which match their bodily pairings when it comes to a form of visceral abandon. The surrogates purchase a level of dramatic impact that connects to a visceral high quality with out ever fairly possessing it. They’ll appear to be our bodies, or appear to be characters, and may even impose bodily metaphors like injury, exhaustion, or lust.
The fifth transfer returns to the world of delimited aesthetic results that was the first drive behind now chronologically distant works. The first distinction here’s a formal stratagem to which Durgin will later return, the merging of the central determine with its scenic background. The 2 formal units right here create a swirling new dimension, the place mutated our bodies commingle with flattened, textural backgrounds. These aren’t any mere plinths. They occupy a brand new extra infinite area through which the anticipated vary of appearances stretches like a funhouse mirror, and but stays stoical. We comprehend them as morphed limbs, and regardless of how they’ve been remodeled, we lengthen our aesthetic sympathies to match them.
The sixth transfer returns us to actual our bodies, as they’re within the strategy of being perceived, studied, and obsessed over. For the primary time Durgin is taking footage of actual our bodies, and the our bodies belong to lovely girls. But these are our bodies deconstructed by the complexity of notion. No train in mere lust, the method readily available right here hides some elements of them, obscures others, and leaves different elements palpably and delectably current. We’ve got on this occasion a second that’s been ready to occur for a while, however one which additionally accommodates signifiers of its personal ambivalence. Durgin appears to be presenting the depiction of his topics as a form of experiment. They current as hybrid reflections. For these are our bodies within the commonplace sense—objects meant for delectation, separated from mere utility. They’re positioned upon a pedestal, or beneath a magnifying glass, or earlier than a digicam lens. All of those manners of portrayal place the physique, particularly a feminine physique, in the identical rarified context.
The seventh and most up-to-date transfer, which continues to be ongoing, has to do with the grounding of the determine, or any kind disposed as such, right into a variable area of notion. Figures grow to be silhouettes that exist as a kaleidoscopic mélange of partial shadows, all the time simply round a nook, showing to supply company or thriller, and infrequently, a taint of need. It is Durgin’s subtlest work, and with probably the most potential for formal achievement. It began with solely feminine silhouettes however has begun to incorporate male ones too, a few of them his personal physique. Their particular self-discipline, which obscures particular particulars, additionally permits him to inhabit his personal photos.
I name Durgin’s progressive formal developments “strikes” as a result of they remind me, alternately, of the stratagems in a chess recreation, and in addition the gestures in a dance efficiency. Each require a shifting of perspective, and a development past authentic perceptions of what’s essential to achieve a given area. In fact every of his collection is possessed of a title, and these titles bestow upon them each authority and thriller on the similar time. After the lengthy consideration that has produced this essay, I discover myself much less considering confronting these titles, of explicating and evaluating them, than I’m within the visible and visceral points of the work itself. I really feel that the expertise of those qualities continually enriches the understanding of which means in his work, which is concerned in telling a narrative in regards to the physique, a narrative that alternates between actuality and alienation, between theatre and evaluation, and at last, it opens up right into a broad expanse the place something is feasible. Wanting again upon all these oeuvres, I think about them as various landscapes through which comparable figures are formed by alternating expectations. One travels amid them to expertise what is exclusive to every. I discover them every compelling and price revisiting sooner or later. This essay was solely the start of the journey.
