El espejo como no-lugar (1964-2010

Abstract

Artists first began to use mirrors in their installations in around 1964, as a way of reassessing the relationships between art and reality and between the self and its image. Using the reflection as a medium, they explore the complex narcissistic world of identity construction, contemplating the same concerns expounded on in art theory through Foucault’s idea of the mirror as a non-place, and Lacan’s theory of the Ego formation. The vision that emerges of the role the mirror plays in these art installations is a paradoxical one. In some cases it reveals a world cut in two, where the subject and their image and surroundings are separate from each other. In others this selfsame vision is superseded by the “dedifferentiated vision”, one that promotes a system and holistic perception of the world at the expense of an excessively anthropocentric one.