I would like to talk to someone about Bakhtin’s ideas of the-grotesque and carnivalesque. I am involved in an exhibition that has these ideas as a theme. I am to write a catalogue essay as well.
I want to know what are the common misreadings of the two above terms. I know that the common association with the carnivalesque is the circus, clowns, freaks etc. but I know it is more involved than this. And the grotesque is about the empathy with something repulsive - elephant man etc. I just want people to give me ideas… I’m fishing. Anything you think is an interesting aspect.
The catalogue is meant to be written within this style too. I am wondering how to approach this - what to include and exclude.
I know that is all a bit vague… just bombard me with words; ignite a spark.
Here is one word that comes to mind: “whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?”
Seriously, I have never heard of this philosopher or these ideas explicitly. You wouldn’t happen to have a reference handy, so I can at least appreciate the discussion?
Hi
I don’t know much about him either… just through invitation into this show.
I know that Mikhail Bakhtin was a Russian philosopher who wrote a lot of literary criticism but I’ve only looked (briefly) into his discovery of Rabelais’ excessive, scatological text. Where he formulated his grotesque and carnivalesque ideas.
Where the carnival was one collective body without spectators but all participants living the event with a sense of freedom of authority.
The grotesque which employs parody, bodies, mockery an upsetting of conventional logic of the world and how things behave in the world: a blurring of boundaries of the body and the world.
Just off hand, to me, ‘carnivalesque’ does not conjure up “…all were considered equal during carnival. Here, in the town square, a special form of free and familiar contact reigned among people who were usually divided by the barriers of caste, property, profession, and ageâ€. At the beach maybe, but a circus is set up: carnies contra marks --they are not equal, or atleast do not percieve one another that way,
In Zalman King’s Two Moon Junction for instance, Perry and April Delongpre are exactly ‘divided by the barriers of caste, property, profession,.’ This contradiction is one of the main themes in all of Zalman King’s films.
