Visual Arts, Death, and Violence: From Hirosada Utagawa to Berna Reale — by Cintia Fasano Leão (IFEN – Brazil)
Published on LYSIS on
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View original imageLYSIS is making the Artes visuais material available to the public. It was prepared by the artist and study group member Cintia Fasano Leão, who will lead the discussion at our next online meeting on September 30.
The presentation takes us through two distinct historical moments. In the first part, Cintia examines prints by Hirosada Utagawa related to Kabuki theater and the representation of seppuku in Edo-period Japan. The images show how voluntary death could be situated within codes of honor, belonging, and reparation quite different from the medical and psychological categories through which it is usually interpreted today.
In the second part, Cintia Fasano's searching gaze turns our attention to the Brazilian artist Berna Reale, especially her 2022 exhibition Agora. In her performances, photographs, paintings, and installations, Berna Reale uses her own body to confront violence, the urgency of the present, and the ways brutal events are turned into images for rapid consumption.
Bringing these two worlds together leaves their differences visible. It invites us to see how images help shape cultural understandings of death, suffering, and violence. References to the contemporary gaze and to Umberto Eco's notion of the “open work” underscore the plurality of artistic experience. The meanings of a work are never entirely fixed. They also take shape in the encounter between the image, its context, and the person looking at it.
Through this work, LYSIS extends its discussions into the visual arts and invites readers to look more closely at the images through which different societies represent death and try to make sense of it.
Written and organized by: Cintia Fasano Leão LYSIS — Center for Studies and Research on Suicide and Ways of Life.
Access the material created and organized by the visual artist Cintia Fasano Leão here: ARTES VISUAIS - LYSIS-Núcleo de Estudos sobre Suicídio