When body becames face

Notes on the idea of projective portrait in Lourdes Castro

Abstract

What space can the portrait preserve in a structure that increasingly places such emphasis on the body? Would it be fair to say that the body, starting from the last decades of the twentieth century, has developed into such a despotic signifier that it now overshadows any form of artistic expression to the point of affecting the very practice of portraiture, daring to eclipse what was central to it, the image of the face? Based on the notion of visagéité (faciality), developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and José Gil's contributions towards concepts such as “body-landscapes”, “face-landscapes” and “face-becoming”, this essay intends to reflect on a process called “transference of functionality”, to ponder how the body becomes a 'face'.