The maternal abject and the works of Joel-Peter Witkin
Joel-Peter Witkin is another artist who works with the abject as a way to expose
and accept it. Both attraction and repulsion are fundamentally embodied in his
work. His manufactured scenes, as in Feast of Fools, 1990 resonate with a Renaissance
tableau (this time Caravaggio’s).
These scenes are both attractive and grotesque forcing the viewer to not only
admire the sensual beauty of the repulsive but to face the horrific. Body parts
sewn up in vaginal shapes amongst putrid but sensual fruits such as grapes and
pomegranate serve to take the viewer further along the road of the maternal
abject. Witkin says:
“I have devoted my soul to the philosophical and artistic investigation
of what it means to be human” 1
This investigation is not dissimilar to the way I make art. Mine is a search
into my own psyche in order to understand better what it is to be human and
more precisely, the nature of being female.
©2001 Mireille Astore
1. Witkin, Joel-Peter. Fotofeis-International Festival of Photography in Scotland, 5 October-5 November 1995. Fotofeis Ltd, Edinburgh 1995.