بدن‌مندی در مجسمه سازی معاصر با تکیه بر اندیشه ژیل دلوز و مرلوپونتی

Embodiment in Contemporary Sculpture: Drawing on the Thought of Gilles Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty
Abstract
In contemporary sculpture, the concept of the "body" has undergone profound philosophical and aesthetic transformations. The body is no longer regarded merely as a figurative subject, nor framed within the distinction between representation and abstraction, but rather as a space for perception, experience, and the production of meaning. The concept of "Embodiment", as the experience of the body interwoven with mind and consciousness, gained a central position in 20th-century philosophy and contemporary art, particularly in reaction to the classical Cartesian mind/body dualism.

This article focuses on contemporary sculpture to examine the body as a cognitive, experiential, and medial tool that mediates between human beings and the world. In this context, the article employs Merleau-Ponty's theory of the "Phenomenal Body", which considers the body as the foundational ground of lived experience, and Deleuze’s concept of the "Body without Organs" (BwO), which liberates the body from established and normative structures, as its theoretical framework and analytical methodology.

The article demonstrates how contemporary sculpture, by moving beyond figurative representation and entering the realm of the embodied, invites the viewer to a multi-sensory, intersubjective, and internal experience of the artwork. This experience, relying on diverse examples and case studies, reveals the conceptual and aesthetic dimensions of embodiment within the context of contemporary sculpture. In this process, the body functions not as a static form, but as a living, fluid, and participatory event that enables the viewer's sensory, mental, and physical engagement with the artwork.