The Abject

The art I am looking at could be described as ‘Abject’ because it is made in response to or to evoke a sense of disgust and even fear like decay, death, bodily waste and so on. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines Abject as ‘... craven, self- debasing, degraded, despicable’

Kristeva, (1982)  in her essay on Abjection suggests that we are repelled and draw to it at the same time. It is all the things that threaten our own cleanliness and sense of propriety. So seeing vomit or blood, an open wound, an oozing sore are abject. She says that seeing a dead body is repulsive to us as we are forced to face someone who has been ‘cast out’ of our cultural world. It reminds us that we are all just organic matter and will rot away.

The biological recognition of the Abject is nausea, panic and fear. I did feel a sense of mild disgust when I looked at Sherman’s  work depicting discarded food and vomit. But I also wondered how she made the vomit and imagined her setting up the shoot in her home studio. My practical side blocked the disgust.

Kristeva, J. Powers Of Horror: An Essay On Abjection. Columbia University Press, 1982