
The body of the State
- Publisher
- les presses du réel
- Year
- 2010
- ISBN
- 978-3-03764-080-7
- Specifications
- Softcover
21,5 x 25,5 cm
128 pages (72 color ill.)
Edited by Lionel Bovier.
Text by Giorgio Agamben.
bilingual edition (English / Italian)
At the end of 2006, Italian photographer Armin Linke was commissioned by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities to realize a reportage. For this commission, the artist proposed a photographic mapping of all the institutions housed in various historical buildings in Rome. His research attempted to carry out both a documentation of and an inquiry into the characteristics of public institutions. The result is a portrait of the Italian State through the understanding of the architectures in which functions and ceremonies are performed daily.
Including excerpts from Giorgio Agamben's recent book "Il Regno e la Gloria," the publication invites a critical reading of the representation of power, while displaying very rarely seen interiors and details of the government's settings in an objective style typical of Linke's images.
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