THE STORY OF THE BODY
An object is the topic that we make of it. We might say the phrase “Physique” as an example, and picture it depicted in a sure method, inside sure limits. This picture of a physique might fall inside sure aesthetic parameters which were established by tutorial 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 vogue of depiction, or a sequence of progressively altered variations, for our supposed thought to vary. 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 trying. Durgin treats the physique as his canvas somewhat 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 components in extremis performed in opposition to completely different coloured backgrounds, made by way of plinths, that body the nameless viscera. Extra just lately, Durgin commingles backgrounds with our bodies, erasing them or making them appear muted or mutated by the restricted means we might have for perceiving them. In these pictures magnificence and want 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 are able to understand how he was motivated to search out new methods of our bodies, even when it meant altering the our bodies themselves. Unusual our bodies in unusual conditions may solely be taken up to now, 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 standard narrative. He needed to excavate layers of that means from the looks of our bodies. On this he might have taken sure esthetic cues from historic precursors akin to Paul Outerbridge and Man Ray, who each offered extremely formalized pictures 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 needed not solely to stake sure claims, however to focus maniacally upon a single thought or object that’s not philosophically intransigent; it may well 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 practical 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 main points 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 hooked up 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 understand the true nature of what it means to be human. They reference historical Greek sculptures, which although fragmentary after the damage 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 excellent 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 deliver 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 route of dramaturgy, and don’t fulfill the calls for for an precise story.
The third transfer factors particularly to formal qualities which might be sure up within the dichotomy of creation and destruction, or Eros and Thanos, love and loss of life. However once more, with Durgin it’s not precise our bodies which might be having both executed to them, besides perceptually by way of using objects to obscure and fragment them, giving us the start of what’s going to later come to be totally realized in a while. In keeping with 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 that means imposed upon the viewer, like an ongoing montage with framed interruptions, like a stream of consciousness narrative that but should bear the separation of pages, with the interruption in consciousness transferring from one web page to the subsequent would require. Relying upon how extremely one turns into emotionally and aesthetically linked to the sum complete of pictures as view contiguously, will be sure that a powerful impact is achieved.
The fourth transfer repeats using surrogates. In that sequence, the accompanying “nonetheless life” for essentially the most half kind diptychs, through which the non-body picture is an upright somewhat than a landscape-oriented {photograph}. On this sequence the nonetheless life turns into a correct surrogate, creating an elliptical train in trying. The opposite main distinction between these sequence is exemplified by the precise surrogate pictures, which match their bodily pairings by way of a kind 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 reworked, we prolong our aesthetic sympathies to match them.
The sixth transfer returns us to actual our bodies, as they’re within the means of being perceived, studied, and obsessed over. For the primary time Durgin is taking photos 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 components of them, obscures others, and leaves different components palpably and delectably current. We’ve on this occasion a second that’s been ready to occur for a while, however one which additionally comprises signifiers of its personal ambivalence. Durgin appears to be presenting the depiction of his topics as a kind 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 underneath 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 remains to be ongoing, has to do with the grounding of the determine, or any kind disposed as such, right into a variable subject of notion. Figures change into 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 want. It is Durgin’s subtlest work, and with essentially 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 pictures.
I name Durgin’s progressive formal developments “strikes” as a result of they remind me, alternately, of the stratagems in a chess recreation, and likewise the gestures in a dance efficiency. Each require a shifting of perspective, and a development past unique perceptions of what’s needed to achieve a given enviornment. After all every of his sequence 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 fascinated about confronting these titles, of explicating and evaluating them, than I’m within the visible and visceral features of the work itself. I really feel that the expertise of those qualities consistently enriches the understanding of that 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. Trying 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.
