Bellmer created several dolls with fragmented bodies that could be dismantled and arranged in various configurations. Then using the form of photography, he captured the image of the dolls in certain positions, often grotesque and in sexual positions. I think this is about death in a way as well as neglect, perhaps abuse. They are left there in these sexual positions, used for this reason. but they lie there empty, destroyed, abandoned, used. Even though they are dolls, the doll is a representation of the human and so you can feel this human conditions when you look at this work. I looks at fragments of the body, ie. 2 bums in the image above looking at certain parts of the body as fetishising.
Bellmer is considered out of date by many. But again, trapped between DADA and surrealism, I think the reason his works are looked down on is due to the fact that - unlike alot of illegal pornography - Bellmers work appears more 'real'.
ReplyDeleteRead Susan Sontags 'the pornographic imagination'.
I always enjoyed the way Bellmer creates a doll, photographs it in a series of sadistic and eroophonophilliac ways, and proceeds to create other worldly experieneces. He seems to be lost between reality and obsession.