Mariana Castillo Deball: Moi-Peau

I am talking about the skin in its impact upon the mind, what I have called the Skin-Ego
Didier Anzieu, A Skin for Thought

Kunsthalle Lissabon presents Moi-Peau, the first solo show of Mexican artist Mariana Castillo Deball in Portugal.

The Skin-Ego (Le Moi-Peau) is a concept coined by French psychoanalyst Didier Anzieu in 1974 on the relations between the experience of the skin and the formation and sustaining of the ego. For Anzieu, the ego is the projection in the psyche of the surface of the body, namely the skin, which makes up this sheet or interface. The skin allows us to distinguish excitations of external origin from those of internal origin; just as one of the main functions of the ego is to distinguish what belongs to myself and what does not belong, between what comes from me and the desires thoughts, and affects of others, and between a physical (the world) or biological (the body) reality outside the mind.
The skin-ego is at once a sac containing together the pieces of the self, an excitation screen, a surface in which signs are inscribed, and guardian of the intensity of instincts that it localizes in a bodily source.

The exhibition at Kunsthalle Lissabon also features Do ut des, an ongoing piece Mariana Castillo Deball has been developing over recent years. Do ut des is a series of altered books with perforations, starting from the front page and working inwards, forming symmetrical patterns when each spread is opened. The books belong to 'O Mundo dos Museus', a collection conceived by Brazilian designer Eugênio Hirsch in the 1970’s offering the reader a promenade through the museum and its functioning, and not just a catalogue of artworks. Each volume is dedicated to a different world museum, starting with photo reportage of the museum in use, its urban landscape and architecture, the process of manipulation and restoration of works, and the visitors walking though the galleries. A two-page spread collaging images of people alongside artworks, indicate the works’ dimensions in relation to the human scale.

Mariana Castillo Deball (Mexico City, 1975) lives and works in Berlin. She is one of the most well-known Mexican contemporary artists, having shown her work in numerous group exhibitions, like the Venice Biennale, Documenta in Kassel, or the Berlin Biennale. Deball recently won the prestigious German Prize Preis der Nationalgalerie für Junge Kunst, which allowed her to present a large-scale solo exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwar that opened last September. Deball's practice has been dealing with the classification mechanisms and the way events, history and culture have been written, archived and distributed. A large part of her work deals with the way in which the exhibition of archeological artifacts has spread historically through the use of replicas, illustrations or books and how those archeological objects have been treated, manipulated and interpreted. Deball has presented numerous solo shows, namely at Museu Experimental el Eco, Mexico City; Museu de Arte Latinoamericano-Mola, Los Angeles, CCA Glasgow, Chisenhale Gallery, London and TEOR/éTica, San José.

Mariana Castillo Deball's exhibition is generously supported by the Mexican Embassy in Portugal and it is part of the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between Mexico and Portugal.

Kunsthalle Lissabon is generously supported by Teixeira de Freitas, Rodrigues e Associados.

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