Intimacy in art
Using Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s body of work to think about intimacy.
"To be intimate with my body I must be close to death. I must be willing to tell what I've seen." —bell hooks
I spend a lot of time thinking about intimacy. About what it means, how we exhibit it, how it enters a dynamic (any dynamic). Intimacy seems to me like the tiniest moment, the smallest knowledge, the faintest brushing with another.
I think we need to renegotiate our relationship to intimacy. We seem to be scared of it, segmenting it only to one realm, or one person. And even then often restraining. And of course, it's difficult not to consider our new context, because intimacy has become a site of danger, in a whole new way post covid. The lack of mouths on cheeks on hands on other mouths. Lacking the weight of another's arms, of another within arms. And I have to wonder what will come of our regard of intimacy as we continue to evolve as a society. Will we become more liberal, more loose, more open? Or will we shelter ourselves further, already too uneasy about hugging, about contact, and now all the more reason to be stiff, to turn away from?
I think intimacy is only a deep pulling towards, an honesty, an openness. To be intimate with my body... to be intimate with my body is to know it very well. Not just its physical form, but its inclinations, impulses, yearnings. The way it recoils from something and slips toward another. The way it always moves in a dance with death. Death, making every move all the more precious, putting everything on the line. To put everything on the line for the smallest of intimacies.
When I look at work by Paul Mpagi Sepuya I think solely of intimacy. His work is incredibly visceral. And strange. It is the strangeness, the unexpected elements of it that pull me in, literally closer, that draw me as near to the image as I can get. Here I find meaning, layers and curiosity.
FIGURE (0X5A0918) Paul Mpagi Sepuya.jpeg
To me intimacy is always specific. In this piece can feel the hush, the pause, these two figures, settling in, waiting for the click of the camera. Skin on skin. Breathing together. Holding position, holding close, holding a moment between their skin. Intimacy in the wrapped arms, the press of hands, the focus of the lens.
Intimacy also between me the viewer and Sepuya the artist, most noted in this pile of clothes and camera left out in plain view. The way he exposes his process like this means something to me.
Where is it for you? How can you take this and integrate it into your own experience with intimacy, whatever that may be? How can this inform your life?
“remember
that all you need to remember is what you love
Remember to Marry the World.”
—Diane di Prima