Catherine Perret's 'Les porteurs d'ombre' explores mimesis and modernity

Catherine Perret's book 'Les porteurs d'ombre. Mimésis et modernité' (Belin, coll. L'extrême contemporain) traces a scholarly, interdisciplinary path through artistic representation and mimesis, starting from a famous dream described by Descartes and later analyzed by Freud, and concluding with a reevaluation of Aristotle's definition of mimesis. The chronological art-historical survey includes a lengthy reading of Velázquez's 'Las Meninas' (overlooking Michel Thévoz's 'Le Miroir infidèle', 1996) and denser analyses of Marcel Duchamp's 'The Large Glass', which recurs throughout and originally gave the book its title. Perret elaborates Duchamp's idea that art is the conquest of a gap through doubling, manifesting as a gap in inscription (Duchamp), fiction (Broodthaers), or foundation (Manzoni). The analysis extends to Henri Michaux and Antonin Artaud, and concludes with a study of abstract practices, American paintings, performances, and a singular text by Michael Craig-Martin. Reviewed by Patrick Perry.