ALLOWING ONESELF TO BE RE-INTERPRETED
What does an artist expect from someone viewing her work?
“… self-understanding (which is also mine) cannot be entirely abstracted from the understanding others have of me.”“… the “subject” of internal identity is not just the “I”, but the “We”.
(Agnes Heller “Autobiographical Memory”)
“… those who read collect, weave, understand – or even respond by writing …. Just as those who become writers do in response to what they read.”
(Nadia Fusini)
“I am certain that these things exist; certain that you, to whom I speak, are capable of understanding me, of interpreting me, of predicting me. (…) Things exist because and for as long as I am. Nothing more. Being certain is relative to actions. Nothing more.There is something else beyond me…”
(From Paul Valery’s “Notebooks”, 1918)
“… what is important about the confession is not being seen, but exposing oneself to being seen, feeling seen, accepted by this gaze and being unified by it.”
(from Maria Zambrano’s “Confession as a Literary Genre”)
This chapter contains different points of view about my work by various interpreters.
Some of these paragraphs have become independent projects and have been expanded, defined and constructed by writers specially for the “Portrait” section of my site. Other writings by critics and theoreticians are archived in the “Documents” section of the “Archive”.
I realise that on first reading this site can seem like a closed, compact, univocal construction where my shameless externalising leaves no space for different readings, but actually my intention and feeling is the exact opposite. I would like all this mass of thoughts, colours and images to be taken and reactivated freely to create new feelings.
What I have constructed thus far through my work and the space of this site does not aim to be a univocal interpretation, but instead wants to offer the possibility of constructing one’s own portrait on top of my self-portrait. It is as though everything that has been created over these years through me in a certain sense has become a shared space where others can find themselves and throw themselves into it, reinterpreting all the mass of work to adapt it to their own conception.
As well as the phase in which the artist looks at herself and interprets her work, in an attempt to understand and analyse her process, it is necessary to add the view of others to help us shift our position about ourselves.
In other words, it is about moving on from the “Self-portrait” phase to the “Portrait” one, of leaving self-authorship in order to enter the mental space of the viewer, who can reinforce, complete or even overturn the artist’s perception of herself.
I am asking you viewers to help me understand who I am, to add an explanation for what I do. I am trying to sustain myself in the construction of myself beyond the space of my self-reflection, including that which is created through your gaze.
(Written in 2019)
