Work

Exéresis

"Exaieresis" from Greek Exo = out (Greek) Ex = that which has ceased to be (Latin).
Synonym: excision
A taking out to surgically remove

EXERESIS: from the Greek, excision. Under the concept of a radical and traumatic cut, the photographer Paz Errázuriz groups these sculptural images, which were randomly collected in different museums around the world. Like found sculptures, these classical torsos are characterized by the absence of the penis. It is this significant omission that dramatizes the meaning and triggers speculation: was the member amputated, and if so, under what surgical policy, or, even more pathetic, was the virile member detached as a fragile and expendable appendage that was never sufficiently attached to the body that supported it? What arouses the visual curiosity of Paz Errázuriz is the objective and scientific character - devoid of any aesthetic trick and rhetorical grandiloquence - with which the camera confirms the ruin of the phallic symbol and the fragility of the discourse of power that sustains it.

Mena, Catalina (2005). Bookstore Metales Pesados, Santiago, Chile.