Retorica corporea: le “constructed situations” di Tino Sehgal

Abstract

Tino Sehgal is internationally renowned for his »constructed situations«, artworks based on the interrelation between their interpreters, the spaces in which they take place, and the audiences of different art institutions. Exploring the boundaries of speech act performativity as well as choreography, dance and song, the artist’s immaterial pieces inhabits the interplay between bodily gesture and rhythmic attunement. Sehgal’s works leave no material trace, yet are commodities nonetheless to be bought and sold. His aim for an immaterial production is very close to the concept of cognitive capitalism analyzed in the past years by scholars such as the philosopher Paolo Virno. Focusing on some of his most interesting artworks, our contribution proposes an art historical and phenomenological reading of the embodied rhetoric through which Sehgal constructs the social space of his pieces. By inviting the visitors to take part and actively discuss with its interpreters, Sehgal’s works enact different spaces of sociality, experimenting with different forms of agreement upon which various understanding of consensus and dissent can be envisaged. Lingering on the multimedia nature of Sehgal’s work, our interdisciplinary analysis will shed light on the embodied rhetoric appearing as part of the contemporary immaterial forms of production. Finally, we aim to sketch some of the political potentials of the concept of embodied rhetoric itself.