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Exposed Wounds: The Photographic Autopathographiesof Hannah Wilke and Jo Spence
amar embeck, PhD candidate (ABD), Dept. o Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University
Résumé
L’article s’intéresse aux autopathographies produites par Hannah Wilke et par Jo Spence inspirées par la lutte qu’elles ont toutes deux menéecontre le cancer dans les années 80 et au début des années 90. Les deux artistes se sont tournées vers l’autopathographie pour réinventer
leurs propres images corporelles, ainsi que l’image sociale de leur maladie. En examinant de près leurs productions, l’article décrit les stratégies
esthétiques et politiques qu’elles emploient pour transmettre leur expérience. Wilke transorme activement son vécu sourant en l’image d’un
exosquelette blessé, où des marques réelles, ainsi que des signes construits autour de sa douleur, sont exhibés sur son corps et par lui. Par cette
transormation, l’artiste parvient à exprimer une position critique ace aux préjugés culturels qui sont rattachés à (l’image de) sa maladie. Spence,
pour sa par t, crée une dialectique visuelle du sujet malade, où son image ne peut acilement être réduite aux statuts extrêmes de « victime » ou
d’« héroïne ». L’image du sujet qui en émerge demeure dynamique et complexe, et échappe aux stéréotypes préjudiciaux. L’article se penche
également sur la dimension perormative impliquée dans toute autoreprésentation, et, plus précisément, dans les objets culturels liés à la maladie
tels que les talismans et les ex-voto, qui sont décrits par Thierry Davila comme étant des « ormes agissantes ». Les œuvres de Wilke et Spence
nous portent à réféchir sur la lourde responsabilité qu’il nous aut assumer ace aux œuvres pathographiques et aux images de la sourance.
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Autopathographic Perormativity
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Wilke and Spence have each exploited the perormative
contradictions implicit to their sel-representations. Not only do
they disarm conventional expectations pertaining to the depic-
tion o emale bodies, but they also counter the continued mar-
ginalization o diseased subjects in representation. Both artists’
creative paths were signicantly inormed by eminist politics, as
well as by their own autobiographies. In each case, their ultimate
reections on illness and dying were preceded by earlier treat-
ments o the same subjects. Beore her cancer diagnosis, Wilke
extensively documented her mother’s experience o breast can-
cer, surgery, and hospitalization in the exhibitions So Help Me
Hannah (1978, P.S.I, New York City) and Support FoundationComfort (1984, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts Gallery, New York
City). Similarly, beore developing terminal leukemia, Spence
constructed a didactically oriented photographic analysis o her
experience with breast cancer or Te Picture of Health? (1982–
86), a touring exhibition, rst shown in 1983 at Camerawork in
London. In their distinct ways, Wilke’s and Spence’s autopatho-
graphic productions are integral to the artists’ lielong creative
practices, which have consistently engaged aesthetic, political,
and even metaphysical concerns through the (sel-)representa-
tion o emale bodies in particular, and critical perspectives on
women’s social roles in general. What ollows is a brie glimpse
into the artists’ manipulations o the autobiographical mode inorder to convey their experiences o illness. Both artists inject
their representations with an authorial presence that is at once
playul, troubling, and powerully afrmative.
Hannah Wilke: Autopathography as the Constructiono a Wounded Exoskeleton
A Nw Y- , H W - w -1960 w. W J Cg z
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Figure 1. Hannah Wilke, So Help Me Hannah Series: Portrait of the Artist wit h Her Mother, Selma Butter , 1978–81. Cibachrome photograph dipt ych, each panel
101.6 x 76.2 cm (Courtesy o Ronald Feldman Fine Ar ts, New York; photo: Dennis Cowley / © Marsie, Emanuelle, Damon and Andrew Scharlatt/ Licensed
by VAGA, New York, NY).
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This image cannot be shown online due to copyright restrictions.
To view please visit the following link:http://www.hannahwilke.com/id5.html
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Figure 2. Hannah Wilke. June 15, 1992 / January 30, 1992: No. 1 from Intra-Venus , 1992–93. Performalist Self-Portrait with Donald Goddard, Chromagenic
supergloss prints, two panels, each 181.6 x 120.7 cm (Courtesy Donald and Helen Goddard and Ronald Feldman Fine Ar ts, New York; photo: Dennis
Cowley / © 2006 Donald Goddard).
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Figure 3: Hannah Wilke. July 26, 1992 / Februar y 19, 1992: No. 4 rom Intra-Venus, 1992–93. Perormalis t Sel-Portrai t with Donald
Goddard, Chromagenic supergloss prints, two panels, each 181.6 x 120.7 cm (Courtesy Donald and He len Goddard and Ronald Fe ldman
Fine Arts, New York; photo: Dennis Cowley / © 2006 Donald Goddard).
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. A J-L N x g-, L’Intrus , x “I” w - w “I” w g, x.25 T g j , j ().Hw, g g w , g g - x, g g
. Ag
g x . T - , w w . Ré L “ g”26; ,w, , . T w x - . I , w, g . I g g g
, x j , w gz, g g.
While it is true that Wilke’s posing in Intra-Venus might
articulate a eminist and even a post-colonial critique o
patienthood and the medical establishment, those who knew
her insist that it was rst and oremost a celebration o lie,
with its many contradictions.27 Intra-Venus was about pursuing
Wilke’s regular daily work, all the while charting the passage o time and the changes in her body. Her amiliar creative pro-
cess was invested with a transormative potential, which, i it
did not heal her, could instead contribute to altering social
perceptions o illness and to countering the ill patient’s pre-
mature social death. Wilke’s autopathographic work also con-
sisted o a metaphysical investigation within a secular context.
As both sitter and photographer in these sel-portraits, she held
up the vanitas mirror to the ragile state o existence between
lie and death, turning her experience o the precariousness
o human lie into a potential point o empathic contact with
Figure 4. Hannah Wilke. June 10, 1992 / May 5, 1992: No. 5 rom Intra-Venus, 1992–93. Perormalis t Sel-Portr ait with Donald Goddard,
Chromagenic supergloss prints, two panels, each 181.6 x 120.7 cm (Courtesy Donald and He len Goddard and Ronald Fe ldman Fine Art s,
New York; photo: Dennis Cowley / © 2006 Donald Goddard) .
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the viewer. By depicting the “kingdom o the sick,”28 that am-
biguous territory between the living, the dying, and the dead,
illness representations such as Wilke’s contain an acting po-tential that might even reach the ethical sensibilities o their
viewers. Beore urther discussing this aspect in the reception
o pathographic images, we turn to the work o British artist
Jo Spence.
Jo Spence: Empowerment through Autopathography
I S’ , f g- w w . L W’, S’ w w g , Mx . H w B B, w - w. I , S w - j, g w w H F W’ Pg C, g x Women, Work and Wages (1973–75) Who’s Still Holding the Baby? (1978). T x- g w , w g, , - , w w B wg. I S’q x, g w
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Figure 5. Jo Spence / Rosy Martin, Infantilization , 1984, rom The Picture of
Health? 1982–86. Photographs laminated on card, 70 x 50 cm (© The Jo
Spence Memorial Archive).
Figure 6. Jo Spence / Terry Dennett, Heroine or Victim? 1984, rom The
Picture of Health? 1982–86. Photograph , 70 x 50 cm (© The Jo Spence
Memorial Archive).
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Figure 7. Jo Spence / Terry Dennett, Crash Helmet Portrait, 1983,rom The Cancer Project. Photograph, 70 x 50 cm (© The Jo Spence
Memorial Archive).
Figure 8. Jo Spence, Cancer Sisters, 1982–83, rom The Cancer Project .Photograph, 70 x 50 cm (© The Jo Spence Memorial Archive).
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j . H w , w g , g . O w g, gz J S - — .
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Photography and the Response to Mortality
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Figure 9. Jo Spence / Terry Dennet t, 15th October, 1984, rom The Cancer Project . Photographs, 50 x 70 cm (© The Jo Spence Memor ial Archive).
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. B g g , g. S g w w , w gg, .
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? G B, w w g - w w : , g , w g g ; -, w . T g g zg w . Y g x g, g , . Tg g
Figure 10. Jo Spence, Looking Death in the Eye, triple slide montage rom The Final Project , 1991–92. Photograph, 70 x 50 cm (© The Jo
Spence Memorial Archive).
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j ( “w ” “ ”) g’ . T ,
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“W w , w . Sg .”
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Figure 11. Jo Spence / Terry Dennett , Decay Project / 15th October, 1984,
double slide montage or The Final Project, 1991–92. Photograph,50 x 70 cm (© The Jo Spence Memorial Archive) .
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g , g, g .
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j , , -g . I w g w — ,
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Acknowledgements
T D J S M- A g , w D G, M N R F F A G, - H W’ g. W x C Lz , A N MP, g wg .
Notes
1 S S G, Disease and Representation: Images o Illness
rom Madness to AIDS (I, 1988), Picturing Health and Ill-
ness: Images o Identity and Dierence (B, 1995); w
S Sg, Illness as Metaphor & AIDS and its Metaphors (Nw
Y, 1990).
2 S T D, “Eéq Cq: Bè I à
’A Mé,” L’Art Médecine , . M Fé D
(P, 1999), 34–63, . 41.
3 A W. F, At the Will o the Body: Refections on Illness (B-
, 2002), 1–7.
4 F : “ ’g ’g é x éé é
’é à ù ’ éé
é ’ê.” T D, “E-
éq Cq,” 51–52. M w
.
5 J B, Giving an Account o Onesel (Nw Y, 2005).
6 B, Giving an Account o Onesel , 32.
7 A H Hw,
g, . S Reconstructing Illness: Studies in
Pathography (W L, 1998), 15.8 Amelia Jones, “Te ‘Eternal Return’: Sel-Portrait Photography as a
echnology o Embodiment,” Signs 27, 4 (2002): 947–78, esp. 950. 9 B’ j g
g. S Gender rouble: Feminism
and the Subversion o Identity (L, Nw Y, 1990), Bod-
ies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits o Sex (L, Nw Y,
1993).
10 O W’ , S G-
, “H H: H W A
F A M,” Hannah Wilke: Exchange Values (V-
-Gz, 2006).
11 S A Kz, “D V,” Hannah Wilke
1940–1993, . S Kz (B, 2000), 103–13, .
104–05.12 S Kz, “D V,” 111; J F,
“F,” Hannah Wilke: A Retrospective , . T H. K-
(C, 1989), 41–50, . 44.
13 P -j -g. “P
gg , g-
g gg,
g gg
.” E S, Te Body In Pain: Te Making and Unmak-
ing o the World (Ox, 1985), 4. S J J, “C
P Bw Sj Oj,” Embodiment
and Experience: Te Existential Ground o Culture and Sel , .
T J. C (Cg, 1994), 201.
14 H W w C Lg, “T A H-g,” Ms ., J/F 1989, 132–33, . 132.
15 J F, “M,” Hannah Wilke: A Retrospective , . T-
H. K (C, 1989), 79–89, . 87.
16 A K, Te Illness Narratives: Suering, Healing, and the
Human Condition (Nw Y, 1988), 22.
17 S Eg G, Stigma: Notes on the Management o Spoiled
Identity (Egw C, 1963).
18 I g w x, W w
g g “” Jw . I -
Intercourse With… (1977), : “
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Jw, g w, I w -
I A.”
K, ., Hannah Wilke , 140. 19 W -,
zg w
.
20 L Ig, Tis Sex Which Is Not One, . C P
(I, 1985), 26.
21 “S-g” D Az’ “-
,” w w w ’ g -
/
g . D Az, Le Moi-Peau
(P, 1993).
22 S G, “H W: G ‘T Rg-
U,’” Hannah Wilke: A Retrospective , . E
D H ., x. ., Nj, Cg C-
A C (Cg, 1998), 6–43, . 40.
23 S S J. W, Medicine and the Body (L-
, 2003).
24 Hw B, Stories o Sickness (Nw H, 1987).
25 J-L N, L’Intrus (P, 2000), 39.
26 F “ é, ’ g.”
Ré L, g q Gg Cg, “E
Qq Pè C N Pgq,”
Le Normal et le Pathologique, Augmenté de Nouvelles Réfexions Con-
cernant le Normal et le Pathologique (P, [1943] 1966),
D L B, Anthropologie de la Douleur (P, 1995), 23.
27 P w w M N, , R F
F A G, Nw Y C, 27 J 2006.
28 Sg, Illness as Metaphor , 3.
29 P’ “ ” 1950 -
g. I -
“x g,”
“ ,” “ g w,
g .” W, Medicine and the
Body , 182, .
30 P w w D, , J S M-
A, 26 A 2006, L, Eg.
31 R M, “Pg U A P: T W J S-
,” Camera Austria 43/44 (1993): 43. 32 S G, Picturing Health and Illness ,
“g ” (. 17)
g g,
. I w , x
g’ g
g w g
.
33 R B, Camera Lucida: Refections on Photography (Nw
Y, [1981] 2000).
34 S Sw, “A P L: R P-
g,” Visual Studies 19, 2 (O 2004): 150–161. Sw
g Sg’, w
g “ --,” w
w g w. S S Sg, On
Photography (Nw Y, 1977), . 11, Regarding the Pain o
Others (Nw Y, 2003). I , w, g
w -,
’ g. N,
q q g
g w .
35 Sw, “A P L,” 154 150, g B, Came-
ra Lucida , 66.
36 Sw, “A P L,” 154. E g.
37 Sw, “A P L,” 155.
38 Sw, “A P L,” 155.
39 P g D -
.
40 J w: “[] ‘g ’ [ça a été ] -
g [] ‘ ’ ”
g . J
w “ g’
j; g, x
j ‘’ xg.”
J, “T ‘E R,’” . 976 975.
41 O g g , B, Camera Lucida ,
78.
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