Scale of the Body : the Question of the Contour
This article aims at studying the way contemporary art analyzes the body through the issue of the outline. The issue is to demonstrate that the outline of the body is neither the perimeter nor the threshold determining a frontier between the outside and the inside. By refusing to circumbscribe the body, the outline proposes a different space called « incirconscrit » by Michaux. Serra, Giacometti, Klee’s works are opportunities to question the power of the outline that refuses to delimite space and poses itself as the scale of its surroundings. The outline of the body does not let us « dream the line ». Contrariwise, when incoprorating it, it proposes a critical distance, a scale to measure itself. It is that specific distance that Merleau-Ponty questions in Le Visible et l’invisible as he puts into perspective Michaux’s poetry and Klee’s painting.