The Aesthetic Clinic

Fernanda Negrete

Description

In The Aesthetic Clinic, Fernanda Negrete brings together contemporary women writers and artists well known for their formal experimentation—Louise Bourgeois, Sophie Calle, Lygia Clark, Marguerite Duras, Roni Horn, and Clarice Lispector—to argue that the aesthetic experiences afforded by their work are underwritten by a tenacious and uniquely feminine ethics of desire. To elaborate this ethics, Negrete looks to notions of sublimation and feminine sexuality developed by Freud, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Nietzsche, and their reinvention with and after Jacques Lacan, including in the schizoanalysis of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. But she also highlights how psychoanalytic theory draws on writing and other creative practices to conceive of unconscious processes and the transformation sought through analysis. Thus, the "aesthetic clinic" of the book's title (a term Negrete adopts from Deleuze) is not an applied psychoanalysis or schizoanalysis. Rather, The Aesthetic Clinic privileges the call and constraints issued by each woman's individual work. Engaging an artwork here is less about retrieving a hidden meaning through interpretation than about receiving a precise transmission of sensation, a jouissance irreducible to meaning. Not only do art and literature serve an urgent clinical function in Negrete's reading but sublimation itself requires an embrace of femininity.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: On Freud's Couch, Dreaming of Art

Part I: The Transvaluation of Health

1. Louise Bourgeois' Art of Hysteria

2. Transmuting Pain into Joy with Precious Liquids

3. Lygia Clark on the Space–Body Problem

Part II: Love beyond Pleasure

4. (Re)Visions of Love: Marguerite Duras

5. Developing Douleur exquise: Sophie Calle et al.

Part III: For an Uncanny Ethics of Care

6. Water, Weather, Words: Le Temps with Roni Horn and Clarice Lispector

Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• Comparative literature

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438480220
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Aesthetic Clinic
SUNY series: Insinuations, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Literature

Charles Shepherdson, editor
The Aesthetic Clinic
Feminine Sublimation in Contemporary Writing, Psychoanalysis, and Art
FERNANDA NEGRETE
Cover: Louise Bourgeois, Precious Liquids , 1992. Collection Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris © The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY. Photo: Frédéric Delpech.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2020 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Negrete, Fernanda, author.
Title: The aesthetic clinic : feminine sublimation in contemporary writing, psychoanalysis, and art / Fernanda Negrete, author.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2020] | Series: SUNY series Insinuations, Philosophy, Pychoanalysis, Literature | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781438480213 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438480220 (ebook)
Further information is available at the Library of Congress.
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Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: On Freud’s Couch, Dreaming of Art
P ART I
T HE T RANSVALUATION OF H EALTH
Chapter 1 Louise Bourgeois’ Art of Hysteria
Chapter 2 Transmuting Pain into Joy with Precious Liquids
Chapter 3 Lygia Clark on the Space–Body Problem
P ART II
L OVE B EYOND P LEASURE
Chapter 4 (Re)Visions of Love: Marguerite Duras
Chapter 5 Developing Douleur exquise : Sophie Calle et al.
P ART III
F OR AN U NCANNY E THICS OF C ARE
Chapter 6 Water, Weather, Words: Le Temps with Roni Horn and Clarice Lispector
Works Cited
Index
Illustrations Figure I.1 The Wedding Dress , Sophie Calle, 1999 Figure 1.1 Arch of Hysteria , 1993; surrounded by À l’infini , Louise Bourgeois, 2008 Figure 1.2 Arch of Hysteria , Louise Bourgeois, 1993 Figure 1.3 “Attaque hystéro-épileptique. Arc de cercle,” Paul Régnard, 1878 Figure 1.4 Une leçon clinique à la Salpêtrière , André Brouillet, 1887 Figure 1.5 Turning Inward Set #1 — À Baudelaire , Louise Bourgeois, 2008 Figure 1.6 “The circuit of the partial drive” from Seminar XI, Jacques Lacan Figure 2.1 Precious Liquids (external view), Louise Bourgeois, 1992 Figure 2.2 Precious Liquids (interior view), Louise Bourgeois, 1992 Figure 2.3 Precious Liquids , Louise Bourgeois, 1992 Figure 2.4 Three Studies for a Crucifixion , Francis Bacon, 1962 Figure 3.1 O Eu e o Tu: Roupa-Corpo-Roupa , Lygia Clark, 1967 Figure 3.2 O dentro é o fora , Lygia Clark, 1963 Figure 3.3 Caminhando , Lygia Clark, 1963 Figure 3.4 A casa é o corpo , Lygia Clark, 1968 Figure 4.1 Césarée , Marguerite Duras, 1979 (still, Aristide Maillol, Montagne , 1937) Figure 4.2 Césarée , Marguerite Duras, 1979 (still, Louis-Denis Caillouette, Bordeaux , 1835–38) Figure 5.1 Exquisite Pain (installation view of “After the Pain”), Sophie Calle, 1984–2003 Figure 5.2 “90 Days to Unhappiness,” Exquisite Pain , 1984–2003 Figure 5.3 «Douleur J–67» Douleur exquise , Sophie Calle, 1984–2003 Figure 5.4 «Douleur J–66» Douleur exquise , Sophie Calle, 1984–2003 Figure 5.5 «Douleur J–65» Douleur exquise , Sophie Calle, 1984–2003 Figure 5.6 Exquisite Pain, 5 Days “After the Pain,” Sophie Calle, 1984–2003 Figure 6.1 View of the harbor from the library, Roni Horn, Vatnasafn/Library of Water , 2007 Figure 6.2 View of Water, Selected with sunlight, Roni Horn, Vatnasafn/Library of Water , 2007 Figure 6.3 You are the Weather ( Iceland ), Roni Horn, Vatnasafn/Library of Water , 2007 Figure 6.4 Detail, Roni Horn, Vatnasafn Library of Water , 2007
Acknowledgments
The inception of the aesthetic clinic goes back to discussions with my dissertation committee. I am extremely grateful to Tracy McNulty, for sparking creative freedom and enabling constraints. Anne Berger sustained a poetic and rigorous reading practice. Patty Keller gave important advice on writing about literature and visual art together. Bruno Bosteels pushed me to interrogate my love of Deleuze and the subject of the unconscious. At the University at Buffalo, I am especially indebted to Ewa Ziarek and Steven Miller, who have been exceedingly supportive, motivating guides. I am fortunate to be a part of the Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture, which galvanized this project. A fellowship from the Humanities Institute enabled me to present a chapter and enjoy great discussions during the 2016–17 academic year, under the superb David Castillo and Libby Otto. Thanks to all my colleagues in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at UB, and to Elizabeth Scarlett for granting me release from teaching duties to focus on this project in 2016–17. The UB Honors College under Dalia Muller supported this project through a Faculty Fellowship in 2018. The UB Modernisms Research Workshop provided valuable feedback on my Bourgeois material. Thanks to Carrie Bramen and the Gender Institute at UB for a Faculty Research Grant in 2018 to do research in New York City, and the invitation to present my results to the Feminist Research Alliance. The Easton Foundation, especially Maggie Wright, made working on Louise Bourgeois a dream. The Tinker Field Research Grant for Latin American Studies and a Cornell Graduate School research travel grant, to study Lispector manuscripts in Rio de Janeiro and reach Iceland, spurred the initial stages of the project. I am grateful to the Julian Park Fund for supporting this publication, and owe special thanks to Julian Park Chair Ewa Ziarek and to Melodia E. Jones Chair Jean-Jacques Thomas for generously covering image copyright costs. UB librarians Molly Poremski and Michael Kicey have been hugely helpful.
Many colleagues at UB and beyond have been examples, readers, and friends: Henry Berlin, Laura Chiesa, Jamie Currie, Sergey Dolgopolski, Caroline Ferraris-Besso, Rodolphe Gasché, Claire Goldstein, Elisabeth Hodges, David Johnson, Damien Keane, Anna Klossowska, Chad Lavin, Nicholas Lustig, James Martell, Elizabeth Mazzolini, Jesse Miller, Noam Pines, Justin Read, Sven-Erik Rose, Jonathan Strauss, Camilo Trumper, Paola Ugolini, Margarita Vargas, Audrey Wasser, and Krzysztof Ziarek. The graduate students in my seminars on this project offered valuable insights, specifically Marta Aleksandrowicz, Ashley Byczkowski, Bryan Counter, Elham Dehghanipour, Cheryl Emerson, Laura Hensch, Megan Hirner, and Matthew Skrzypczcyk. Willy Apollon, Heidi Arsenault, Danielle Bergeron, Lucie Cantin, Shanna de la Torre, Jeffrey Librett, Tracy McNulty, Steven Miller, Valerie Wevers, and Daniel Wilson have been formidable teachers and interlocutors on psychoanalysis as the effect of an experience. I have also found different forms of inspiration and encouragement for this book from Guillermo Albert, Aura Bautista, Araceli Casillas, Hélène Cixous, Cyril Francès and Hedwige Claux, Caroline Gates, Kaisa Kaakinen, Gabriela Montaraz, Daniela and Carla Negrete, Jim Siegel, Carissa Sims, Daniel Stifler, Omar Tapia, Daniel Tonozzi, Anarela Vargas, and Paloma Yannakakis. Special thanks to my editor, Rebecca Colesworthy, for her faith in this project, as well as to the manuscript readers, and SUNY Press. My parents, Elsa and Jaime Negrete, offered colossal help to free time for writing in the past semesters. Finally, I would like to thank my husband and daughter, Henry and Rosa Berlin, for their brilliance, love, and patience. This book is dedicated to them, and to the women in my life.
Acquired Permissions
Portions of chapter 4, “ (Re)Visions of Love: Marguerite Duras ,” appeared in a different form in “Duras’ Césarée and the Subject of Love,” CR: The New Centennial Review. 15: 3 (2015): 167–199, and in “Acts of Love and Unconscious Savoir in Marguerite Duras’ Writing,” S: Journal of the Circle for Lacanian Ideology Critique 12 (2019).
© 2019 The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at ARS, NY for all Louise Bourgeois images and writings.
© The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY for MOMA installation-view images.
© CNAC/MNAM/Dist. RMN-GP for Louise Bourgeois’ Precious Liquids , 1992.
© The Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation/The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved. DACS, London/ARS, NY 2019.
Lygia Clark images, Courtesy of Associação Cultural “O Mundo de Lygia Clark,” Rio de Janeiro
© 2019 ARS, NY/ADAGP, Paris for all Sophie Calle images.
© Artangel and Roni Horn for VATNASAFN/LIBRARY OF WATER, Roni Horn, 2007, commissioned and produced by Artangel.
Image files for Precious Liquids , 1992 (external view) and Turning Inwards Set #1 (à Baudelaire) , 2008, Courtesy of Louise Bourgeois Studio.
Image files for Sophie Calle, Courtesy of Galerie Perrotin and Paula Cooper Gallery
Image files for VATNASAFN/LIBRARY OF WA