Untitled, plate 1 of 5, from the illustrated book, The Laws of Nature
2003-2006
States
Illustrated Book
2003
Illustrated Book
2006
Series
c. 2003
Series
2001-2003
Series
c. 2003
Series
c. 2003
Paulo Herkenhoff,
Notes on the Laws of Nature,
2003Desire challenges the laws of nature. It defies the rules of anatomy, gravity, time, and language. In the encounter between the body and desire, muscles and tissues gain elasticity and tonus, migrating beyond the logic of corporeal boundaries. Body language is the utterance of the unspeakable.
There is silence in desire. In the melody of the pas de deux, the bodies write themselves. One is inscribed in the other. The dance of desire is the calligraphy of seduction.
The language of the body is a topological choreography similar to a Moebius strip, where the actual continuity of One and the Other is a surface without inside and outside. What estrangement is possible? Fusion fears separation while phantoms anticipate it, leading lovers to melancholic fantasies of incorporation. It is the eve of loss. One body nourishes while one is nourished.
A print is the memory of the body of the Other in our body. The act of turning a page reiterates the action of lightly touching the Other. The dance of love passes through our fingers. Closing this book is wrapping the body in the memory of a precious moment.
Desire wants no end. Lovers experience suspended time. Amor fugit. The only fragile defense against time is the poetical belief in the imaginary quality of love as being eternal. The lovers hold each other and will not be separated. At the end, the world is totally upside-down.