Abstract

To represent is to stand for something else, it is thus to lie about the truth of thing. The work of Esther Shalev-Gerz doubly refutes this presupposition : on the one hand, the thing itself is never there, there is only representation : words borne by bodies, images which present to us, not what words say but what these bodies do ; on the other hand, there is never any representation, one is always confronted with presence : things, the hands that touch them, mouths that speak of them, ears that listen, images in circulation, eyes in which one can see the attention to what is spoken or seen, and projectors which convey these signs of bodies to other eyes and ears