Okrucieństwo ontologiczne i „konwulsyjne piękno” kobiet­‐lalek Hansa Bellmera

Abstract

In this paper, I ask about the phenomenon of cruelty in art, considered in the context of the trans formations that have taken place in modernity concerning man’s relationship to natural
being. The effect of these transformations has been a manipulative and commanding attitude of man towards this being. Being has been reduced, according to Heidegger, to the role of a ‘storehouse’ (Ge­‐stell), which man sets upon himself in an attempt to make maximum use of it for himself. I call this attitude ontological cruelty. At the same time, I pose the question: Do the transformations that have taken place in contemporary art under the influence of avant­‐garde theories correspond to these broader changes? I try to show that there is no such analogy, because the representations of artworks are marked by a completely different attitude to being, based on its ‘confirmation’ and a kind of ‘elevating’. However, the space of creative freedom opened up by the avant­‐garde in relation to the material of the work raises a different kind of question about the status of cruelty in art. I take these questions as
points of reference when considering the surreal world of female doll bodies in the work of the German artist Hans Bellmer. This case is all the more significant because in this work female bodies are deformed to a far­‐reaching extent: they are mutilated in various ways,
metal and wooden prostheses are attached to them, and so on. The question of the actualstatus and meaning of these deformations and mutilations then becomes acutely relevant. What is the peculiar kind of aesthetic ‘cruelty’ behind this?