Subject:
Reliquary Arm, Aura, Body, Fragment, Sculpture.
Resumo (PT):
Abstract (EN):
The article studies the fragmented body’s power in the relationship between
relics, reliquary arms and contemporary sculptural production. Focusing on the
period between the 16th century and today, it opposes reliquary arms with
objects whose conceptual and artistic structure deals with this subject.
A cross reading is carried out between the reliquary arms of the Cathedral of
Viseu and the Museum of São Roque, of Clara Menéres' “Reliquary” (1970)
and of Grécia Paola's “Vanitas Hands” (2018). The study re-examines the
definition of relics through the action of materiality, temporality, and sacredness
of the body-relic, emphasizing the value and the narrative of the forearm-hand
in Ovid's myth of Midas and in artistic production. Based on Peter Brown, Walter
Benjamin, Gonçalo Tavares, and Jean Brun the place of the aura, cult value
and exhibition value of the relic, reliquary and artistic body-object is examined.
The relic, the reliquary, and the contemporary production intersect in an
interdisciplinary study as to the symbolic power of fragments and tales of the
body. Fragments speak of the body’s absence of the totality and evoke its
prosthetic and poetic figuration through the anthropomorphic reliquary, opening
to the equations of a story that is incomplete and available to the imagination
and spirituality. Therefore, the relic is analysed as a sensorial vestige and the
study tackles the inscriptions of tales, time and space in sculptures, relics, and
reliquary arms featuring the representation of a fragmented body.
Language:
English
Type (Professor's evaluation):
Scientific
Contact:
artes.porto.ucp.pt
Notes:
1st International Conference on Relic Studies. Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Porto, Portugal, November 24-26, 2021
No. of pages:
3