It is not uncommon to see art installations constructed of mirrors, as, for example, those by Anish Kapoor and Yayoi Kusama, in which we see ourselves either distorted into grotesque figures or multiplied to infinity. We look with amusement or shock at the appearance in the mirror of the self which is our own and yet an alien who seems strangely disturbing: it is as if a whole new being had detached itself from the person we had thought we were and threatened to vitiate our belief in the inviolate integrity of the self. In another mirrored scene, our reflected self moves in the opposite direction each time we take a step and for a moment we wonder who that person is who’s so bent on avoiding...
↧