« Geste dans geste, comme un gant »: Mains tendues à la préhistoire chez Jean-Loup Trassard et Miquel Barceló

Abstract

This article focuses on two artists who take the hand – the origin of most gestures since the beginning of mankind - as the centre of their research and activity. Writer Jean-Loup Trassard seeks to reconstruct the time-honoured gestures initiated by Neolithic man and about to be forgotten, while visual artist Miquel Barcélo reintroduces the hand in contemporary art, his works being freely inspired by the hand prints of Palaeolithic cave artists. Both draw on the persistence and revival of very ancient primordial gestures, whose traces need to be resurrected. The prehistoric gestures they reconstruct raise fundamental questions about our humanity, at a time when contemporary art sees a withdrawal of the hand in favour of a so-called liberation of man via modern technology.

Keywords

• gesture
• hand
• prehistory
• Dormance
• Barceló (Miquel)
• Trassard (Jean-Loup)