Introduction

Bracha L. Ettinger is among the leading intellectuals associated with contemporary French thought. Her approach significantly extends the work of contemporary philosophers and psychoanalysts such as Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Deleuze-Guattari  and Jacques Lacan, and challenges the works of Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray. Drawing on multi-disciplinary approaches to art and psychoanalysis, Bracha Ettinger, a prominent contemporary artist and a groundbreaking theoretician working at the intersection of feminine sexuality, psychoanalysis, and aesthetics, has been forging for the last twenty years a new "matrixial" theory and language with major aesthetical, analytic, ethical and political implications. Ettinger’s ideas offer the hope that identities might not have to be achieved either sacrificially or at someone else’s expense.  Articulating the feminine, maternal and womb, the prematernal, presubject,  trans-subjectivity, coemergence as pregnancy, wit(h)nessing and transference as reciprocal yet a-symmetrical co-birthing, her approach implicitly questions the necessity of Kristeva’s sacrificial social contract, at the same time as she urges us to rethink the opening of a new ethical horizon via concepts such as trans-subjective com-passion, primary compassion and fascinance, claiming archaic "aesthetic" mental-psychic apprehension of the other and of the world as proto-ethical. The infant-m/Other transconnectivity includes other non-I(s) right from the start. Working through "borderlinking" in trans-subjective webs is neither symbiotic nor Oedipal. It brings about subjectivizing moments and actualizes human creative and ethical potentialities. Bracha L. Ettinger is at present the Marcel Duchamp Professor of Psychoanalysis and Art at the Media & Communications Division, European Graduate School (EGS), Saas-Fee.  

Bracha Ettinger's artworks, mainly paintings, drawing, Artist's books and photographs have been presented extensively in major museums of contemporary art. Among them:

The  Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp [Gorge(l), 2006-2007].  Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (ARS 06 Biennale, 2006).  Gothenburg Museum of Art (Aletheia, 2003).  Villa Medici, Rome , (Memory, 1999).  Israel Museum, Jerusalem [Voices from Here and There (Mar'ee Makom, Mar'ee Adam), 1999], (Routes of Wandering, 1992).  Haifa Museum & Theater [Women Artists in Israeli Art (the Ninties), 1998].  Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (Kabinet, 1997). The Pompidou Centre (Face à l'Histoire, 1997).  Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (Body, 1997).  Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth (Inside the Visible, 1997). Museum for Israeli Art, Ramat-Gan (Oh Mama, 1997).  Institute of Contemporary Art ( ICA ) Boston , (Inside the Visible, 1997).  National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington , (Inside the Visible, 1997).  Whitechapel Gallery, London (Inside the Visible, 1996).  Tel Aviv Museum of Art (Israeli Art Now, 1991; Feminine Presence, 1990). With Solo exhibitions at: Lokaal 01, Antwerp . ThRu1 Virtual exhibition (2007). Gerwood Gallery, Oxford University , Oxford (2003). La librairie, Les Abattoirs, Toulouse (2003. Maison de France, Hebrew University , Jerusalem . The Drawing Center, NY (2001).  Centre for Fine Arts (The Palais des Beaux Arts), Brussels (2000).  Pori Art Museum , Finland (1996), (with Sergei " Africa " Bugayev).  Israel Museum, Jerusalem (1995). The Leeds Metropolitan University Gallery, Leeds (1994). Kanaal Art Fondation, Béguinage, Kortrijk (1994), (with Nancy Spero). The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), Oxford (1993). Galerie d'Art Contemporain du Centre Saint-Vincent, Herblay (1993).  The Russian Ethnography Museum in St. Petersburg , Russia (1993). Le Nouveau Muséem, IAC - Institut d'art contemporain, Villeurbanne (1992). Goethe Institute, Paris (1990). Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle de Calais, Calais (1988). Moltkerei Werkstatt, Köln. The Pompidou Centre, Paris (1987).

Versión en Castellano

Bracha L. Ettinger is a Visiting Scholar and Artist at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus from March 3rd to 8th, 2008.

• Information about Seminar and Lectures is available in this webpage
• All lectures are open to faculty, students and general public
• Free registration to the Seminar. 

 

© UPR-RRP, 2008

Bracha L. Ettinger, 
Photo by Sofie Van Loo, 2007