An encounter with the Real: The anxiety in Joel-Peter Witkin's photographs

• Grant number: 20/14414-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2021
• End date: July 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Art Fundamentals and Criticism
• Principal Investigator: Gustavo Henrique Dionisio
• Grantee: Lucas Perroni dos Reis
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims to draw a parallel between the works of the north-American photographer Joel-Peter Witkin and the concept of psychoanalytic anxiety as studied by the French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, while taking into account the lacanian unfoldings, approaches and critiques of this same subject, which was presented previously by Sigmund Freud.Based on the concept of the lacanian anxiety and on contributions made by academic scholars and researchers of those areas, this project consists in allying these psychoanalytical conceptions with a critical analysis of Witkin's works with regard to the matter of anxiety and the abject, and how both are presented and observed in the artist's creations, in consonance with psychoanalysis and Aesthetics. In this case, Aesthetics and aesthetical reception are fundamental pieces to understand and analyze the artist's creations and his relations with the receiving audience, which is also impacted by the concepts proposed by psychoanalysis.