Thinking the body as a basis, provocation and burden of life

Alexandre Roig

The Headless Body129

The ablation of the head is evident, almost a triviality. André Masson is thus convinced when, in April 1936 in front of Georges Bataille, he draws the first lines of Acéphale, an illustration from the homonymous magazine. But, where do we put this uncomfortable and painful head? Irresistibly, it finds its place over the genitals (masking them) as a skull130. This slide, this downward displacement that reduces the capita to a skull and a mask, it is not an absence, but a vacancy: the vacancy of the self, as Klossowski would say responding to the vacancy of God, it would constitute the sovereign moment. Free space is subjected to the possibility of return. Bataille likes to disrupt the concepts and escape the ...