Every Bow is Bondage – Every Knot is a Breath: On Beauty from Two Drawings by Renato Valdelamar

A sky-throned sphinx, unknown yet, I combine
The cygnet’s whiteness with a heart of snow.
I loathe all movement that displaces line,
And neither tears nor laughter do I know.

Charles Baudelaire, La Beauté

Why do I distrust gestures of beauty? My relationship with it is similar to an abject experience of the incessant return of an image. As Julia Kristeva would say¹: “when I recognize something as beautiful, I feel my insides revolt against everything my stomach contains; my palms sweat, I begin to bite my lip’s mucosa and tense a smile.” A conflict between the desire to see oneself represented and the limit of not being able to be that which one reflects upon. However, the symptoms I present are not generated by disgust, but by rejection. Thinking about the signs that could describe that rejection has led me to define what those things that return to me are: the reflection and the shadow. Seeing my reflection tends to be a challenging experience. When I am in front of a mirror, the return of my gaze can hardly stop focusing on my hips, on the texture of my skin; on those things that sometimes I wish not to see so closely or that I would hardly let someone else recognize in me. On the other hand, my shadow tends to be more honest with me and with others, though not less brutal for that reason. I conceive my reflection as that which I would like other people to see—or not—about me, and my shadow as that which inevitably forms part of me and continues extending beyond my will.

All this said, I recently lived a challenging experience without looking at myself in a mirror. I visited the exhibition Cisne espléndido, pato gris [Splendid Swan, Grey Duck], curated by Andy Zafra at Local 7, a show full of tenderness under the pretext of the inauguration of this space. The curatorship is composed of works by María Vez, Renato Valdelamar, Inari Reséndiz, Natalia Millán, Laura Meza Orozco, Alejandro Castañeda, María José Casazza, and Camila Barba. Before crossing the street, I began to hear the wind sweetly whispering an invitation to me through a large-format drawing by Renato: the door frame also serves as a frame for the drawing.

Two Drawings

From afar, in the image, I see a naked subject with his back to me, while he, in turn, contemplates a group of gleams that also seem surprised by his figure; some try to hide the astonishment of their mouths behind their palms, others extend their arms with just enough caution not to disrupt the desire that is provoked in that very brief distance they keep from the body. At that moment, I feel like one of those gleams; the only difference is that I am the only one who dared (understanding that as a spectator, I have no other view of the scene) to see this body from behind, without recognizing its face. I am, at that moment, a bit shameless. My eyes begin to shine, to look for a point that allows me to observe him with the same desire with which he is seen by the gleams of my pupils, which seem to have escaped from me to integrate themselves into the drawing. Could it be that, somehow, this body manages to recognize that I am behind him through my gaze so rebellious that it has escaped my skull just to see him face to face? That we look into each other’s eyes without ever fully knowing each other’s faces? Perhaps these questions are the result of my stubbornness to want to recognize him from all angles, at the same time.

Shortly after, I feel intimidated. I do not like to admit that I have been dazzled by a naked body that seems so distant from mine. I recognize in that body what I do not possess and fill myself with a bit of shame: my reddened ears betray me. Sometimes, seeing oneself in a mirror—or feeling perceived by others—is an experience I would define as acknowledging the swan in the room. It is not an expression I use to describe the pleasure of being seen, but vulnerability. This swan is not a figure of beauty, but of discomfort. A response of knowing oneself out of place, full of signifiers without being entirely conscious of them. An image that could be as close to beauty as to frenzy; as easily recognizable as abject.

Another of the drawings, also by Renato, that form part of the exhibition is closer to this expression. Desamparo: el asedio de los cisnes terribles [Abandonment: The Siege of the Terrible Swans] (2023) is a scene in which a naked body is attacked by a flock of swans. Seeing this subject in such a violent scene awakens in me an immense desire for care, an impulse of protection. That, upon realizing that, if I were to break into the scene in my imagination, I would become one of those swans involved in the permanent pecking. For me, the work is yet another way of formulating that I would wish to be recognized as a swan as beautiful as it is uncomfortable, equally capable of violence and tenderness, eternally hopeful of producing meanings without finding myself condemned to have them return to me as a karmic lesson.

Two Drawings About Me: The Knot and the Bow

How can I navigate a world crammed with images that intimidate me? What substitution can I make to allow myself to confront the insecurity produced in me by the eternal return of beauty in the world? Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari² write about two forms—neither dichotomic nor unique—with which we can recognize the cultural structures we inhabit: the tree and the rhizome. The first is a vertical form of reading meanings based on structure, hierarchy, and delimitation; while the second is rather a decentralized form, based on detachment from origin and the possibility of perpetuating the hyper-relational capacity between concepts. When I think about the structural forms of beauty, I recognize two figures that could operate similarly to the tree-rhizome: the bow and the knot.

The bow, so showy, of so many possible materials and finishes, always used as the crown of the image. The gift, the headdress, the ornament for the neck. An artifact determined to use space, to extend beyond oneself, an aid to present ourselves and make ourselves legible in other ways. Unlike the bow, the knot does not help me to represent myself more than it restricts me. Similar to the shadow, the knot does not obey my desire nor my insecurity, but me as a whole. A bondage knot that connects my spine to my knee, my neck to my feet, my hands to my hips, my chest to my forehead; in turn, the rest to everything else. An interweaving of tissues that seek to incarnate in my skin and restrain me from fleeing contact with myself. I distrust gestures of beauty—the bows—because I distrust the return of the image; I run, intimidated by my inability to hold still a swan in a room with its wings spread and its neck erect to be perceived by others. Whereas the knot, no matter how restrictive its intentions may be, reminds me that I cannot control my image all the time; it invites me to feel connected, to be vulnerable rather than presentable.

Adorable. A word that is less painful for me to use when dealing with beauty. For Roland Barthes³, what is adorable is more intimately related to desire and to radiance. To recognize something as adorable gives me the opportunity to be kind with what returns to me. When I recognize something as adorable, I do not see in the image an impossibility of beauty. Instead, I recognize the desire generated in me by that which attracts me. I let myself be dazzled not by those things that beg to be seen, but by those that softly whisper for me to return my gaze toward myself as a whole, not as a hip or a crooked smile. If it is within me, I prefer to be adorable while tied in impossible knots than beautiful while upholding great ideals with feathers that barely cover my shame. I prefer to be indecipherable than to be an image; to exercise my desire and tenderness rather than imagine how they will be received and what consequences must be paid for being interpreted.

— César Esparragoza

Translated to English by Luis Sokol

1: Kristeva, Julia, Poderes de la perversión, 2023, México: Siglo XXI Editores. Traducción de Nicolás Rosa, Viviana Ackerman.

2: Giles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Rizoma, 2023, España: Pre-textos. Traducción de José Vázquez Pérez y Umbelina Larraceleta.

3: Barthes, Roland, “¡Adorable!” En Fragmentos de un discurso amoroso, 2024, México: Siglo XXI Editores. Traducción de Eduardo Lucio Molina y Vedia.