BEHIND A MASK, ANOTHER MASK.
AUTOFICTION AND DISCOURSE IN THE WORK OF GILLIAN WEARING
Abstract
A new genre with emancipatory intentions is born in parallel to the construction of the self and autobiography. We are referring to autofiction. Heir to the literary experimentation of the last decades of the 20th century, it entered the visual arts through photography, questioning the models of representation, as well as the place of enunciation of the discourse. This act marked a paradigm shift in thought and narration, but also historiographically in terms of the definition and visuality in the construction of the postmodern subject. The latter has turned its interest to self-knowledge, self-representation and empowerment of its image. In this sense, the self-fiction becomes the communicative space that alters hegemonic regimes. Thus, today autofiction constitutes a methodology aspiring to say something else where to form a new reading of 21st century art. A tool of self-expression with the capacity to give voice and offer a place for revolutionary minorities beyond fiction itself. To demonstrate all this, we will analyze the power of the mask and its attempt at an opalescent politics, heir to Glissant's opacity, to embark on the artistic work of Gillian Wearing.
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