KMT 2020 nr 2 Download PDF

Pregnancy body in contemporary art in perspective of the Julia Kristeva’s abject concept

Cite: , Ciało ciężarne w sztuce współczesnej na tle koncepcji abiektu Julii Kristevej, "Kultura - Media - Teologia", 2020( 41) nr 2, s. 127-143.

DOI: 10.21697/kmt.41.6

The following paper is an analysis of artistic work of three authors: Frida Kahlo, Alina Szapocznikow and Iris van Zanten. Each of chosen depictions refers to pregnancy, childbirth, miscarriage or breast feeding. Selected cultural texts have been interpreted based on the conception of abject popularized by a linguist and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva. Apart from this conception which is going to be the main method of the analysis, it has been also referred to the findings from a circle of classical psychoanalysis, feminist anthropology, and theory of ambivalent nature of sacrum. In my analysis I’m concentrating on depictions of the pregnant body in art, how it alters and assimilates with the abject, but also on operating strategies such as tabooization, sacralization, or sublimation.

About authors

Piotr Kamiński

ORCID: 0000-0002-7918-9875