Extreme Bodies—The Use and Abuse of the Body in Art

The body described in this book is a theoretical subject in which the connection between art and the categories of excess are explored. The author provides an analysis of the way the body has long been manipulated by its relationship with cultural, religious and political institutions, to the point of self-mutilation. What is being explored is the body as a construction of forms of discourse, obligations and mechanisms of control. The result is a mapping of the most significant iconographies of this special body that has always inhabited art. It is typically contemporary to choose a body that is at once subject and object of a multitude of events that suggest continual references to classical iconography, emphasising the numerous analogies and affinities between the experiences of contemporary artists and the most traditional Western iconography.
This thought-provoking volume presents a fierce and sophisticated vision, a remarkable sense of the spirit of the time, the representation of macrocosms which include methods, trends, acts of rebellion, mutations and images of humanity undergoing transformation.

Francesca Alfano Miglietti is a theorist of mutations in visual languages. She is an independent curator and critic as well as editor-in-chief of the Italian magazine VIRUS Mutations.