Self-Portrait Behind a Perforated Canvas
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- Self-Portrait Behind a Perforated Canvas
- 1977
- 17 photocopied photographs mounted on cardboard
- 61 × 107,7 cm
“Self-Portrait Behind a Perforated Canvas” is a work belonging to the series of large-scale textile works entitled “Perforated Canvas”. These works were created using a surgical scalpel to cut small triangular shapes into a canvas, with the resulting fragments taped open to reveal the holes. They embodied an attempt by Edita Schubert to renew traditional painting: “I had to plunge a knife into the canvas; it simply got on my nerves, that taut surface on which I had to talk about something—using my brush, no less. So I stabbed the canvas with a knife instead of with the brush.” This series was used for an action in which the holes served to frame various objects. The artist showed her own body parts, such as her fingers, eye, ear, or mouth. She also presented a fragment of a reproduction of her favorite painting, Giorgione’s “The Tempest.” Referring to this work was the enigmatic phrase: “Dissection as evening nude.” Schubert’s works usually focus on the problem of the human figure’s representation as the basis of any image. “Self-Portrait Behind a Perforated Canvas” is yet another attempt at reformulating the life-art dichotomy—as a painting that welcomes the gaze, which itself reaches further than the surface—in the context of everyday human presence. D.M.