Skin/wound

Abstract

For semiotics of the body interested in the concepts of “mark”
and “trace,” the manifestation of the skin in the work of art can
offer a fertile space for reflection. This is what this article tries
to demonstrate where three sculptures are closely analyzed that
belong to the installation entitled: La transparencia de Dios by
the Cuban artist Juan Francisco Elso (1956-1988). The marks
inscribed in the surface of the sculptures are precisely what
perceptually suggest a double semiotic possibility: that of
considering the work in its totality as a phenomenic, carnal,
impression or as a wrapping that negotiates its own carnality
starting from the process of healing of the wounded skin. From
there the restrained ambiguity on the surface of these very same
sculptures between the wound at the “level of the skin” and
the wound transformed into a scar. The uncertain healing of the
wound in the “body of work” is what finally permits showing
the imbalance in the formalization of meaning and, therefore,
conceiving semiosis as a “nonformal” process. This is to say,
having the body itself function as a corporal operator of thereunion between the content plane and the expression plane.