Extreme bodies. The use and abuse of the body in art

This thought-provoking volume presents an original, theoretical reflection on the use of the body in art. It analyses the ways in which the body has always been manipulated: from its relationship with cultural, religious and political institutions to self-mutation.
The book is divided into 3 sections:
- From Beato Angelico to the present day, via some of the most sensational works of Western art. Here, the body represented is a “special body” bearing a considerable number of signs: a sort of iconography of pain. This section also analyses the tension in works created in a state of imprisonment and in meaningful contemporary performances on the subject of hardship.
- From Munch to contemporary society, the second part of the book explores significant experiences in forms of control that have changed over the years: from scars left on the bodies of prisoners, of madmen, of the different (tattoos, scarification, radical haircuts and electroshock therapies) right up to the video-cameras installed in all places of transit and the mapping of individual data.
- The book concludes with an analysis of some of the major practices of body alteration, bordering on self-mutation (and mutilation), via plastic surgery, transplants and implants to the threshold of a generation incapable of distinguishing between real forms and a manipulated reality.