Incorrect and beautiful anatomies
becomings, immanence, and transspecies bodies in the art of Roberto fabelo
pp. 253-275
in: Dominik Ohrem, Matthew Calarco (eds), Exploring animal encounters, Berlin, Springer, 2018Abstract
In a series of ink drawings over the pages of a nineteenth-century medical encyclopedia containing illustrations of human anatomy, the contemporary Cuban artist, Roberto Fabelo, produces a catalogue of figures displaying zoological physiognomies. Overlapping the uniform incisions of the text's original engravings with sketchy, gestural cross-hatching, Fabelo transforms tissue, capillaries, muscles and bone into aesthetic material. While these images produce hybrid morphologies on an iconographic level, I aim to demonstrate that the crossing of species identities does not simply remain at the safe distance of the fantastic. In the juxtaposition of clinical, two-dimensional illustrations and volumetric chiaroscuro we can observe agitated lines that subvert the privileged position of the human. Fabelo's compositions undermine representational techniques that have served as the means of producing taxonomies.