Amaral

Spelling love letters · Épeler les lettres de l’amour

Two fingers press against each other, top to tail; a mouth seen from the front, where each lip gives birth to one finger, one pointing to the right and the other pointing to the left; a fingertip kisses a pair of lips viewed from the side, that are prolonged into two fingers moving in opposite directions and go on to become three toes, in an arrangement where the bottom median plane becomes a mouth seen from the front; a penis with its foreskin still on emerges from between three fingers; the bulges of two fingertips meet, the first finger is quickly replaced by a penis, the second finger now sets its fingernail on the flesh underneath the head of the penis, while other parallel fingers follow, either spread apart or not; a finger kneels so that the fingernail can set itself on top of another finger’s fingernail, which precedes four other fingers who are evolving towards prehension; a penis extends underneath a finger, where the head of the penis collides with the nipple of a female breast; even more adventurous, another penis head glides along the edge of a chin that ends in a fingernail, towards the profile of a slightly open mouth; finally five fingers hold different positions: this is a Love Letter by Amaral. To whom is this letter addressed, for which I just drafted not a translation but a description? I do not know, and I must add that to this moment where I delve myself into his work, I have never once met Amaral, I have never heard his voice over the telephone, nor have I ever held in my hands a photograph of him, or a text signed or endorsed by him regarding his intentions. All I know is that François Di Dio, the first person ever to tell me about him, holds him in high esteem and that Albert Loeb, whose enthusiasm is pleasurable to watch, will be exhibiting his recent work. I thus find myself, in a time where our love of gloss blossoms into glosses of glosses about glosses, in the truly privileged position of the first spectator, who, having been brutally thrown into these things, would find himself reduced solely to the lights provided by his own perspective and the more or less remote echoes awoken in his memory or his sensitivity.

—José Pierre, 1973 [Extracto de texto. Traducido de francés por Ana María Correa].