Miguel Ángel Hernández. Inhabiting the Image: Affections, Memories, Fictions

Miguel Ángel Hernández is the author of several essays on contemporary art and visual culture, including his latest publication, Yo estoy en la imagen. Ensayos afectivos y ficciones criticas (Acantilado, 2024). The act of looking is always interpretive: it involves the establishment of an intimate relationship that affects both the observer and the object of their gaze. Despite the supposed detachment often demanded of art theorists, Miguel Ángel Hernández has been approaching images in this way for years, establishing a profound dialogue with them on the continuum of art and life.

This latest book is a compilation of texts, halfway between essay, autobiography, and narrative, in which, following in the footsteps of Benjamin, Sontag, and Barthes, he explores issues such as the value of memory and its connection to knowledge, mourning, the ethics of looking, the relationship between technology and desire, and the subjective perception of time.

In the talk titled Inhabiting the Image: Affections, Memories, Fictions Hernández will discuss his book in this new session of the Art en pantalla II programme, in addition to recommending favorite art history readings such as Hal Foster’s The Return of the Real and David Freedberg’s The Power of Images, among others.

Art en pantalla II is the second part of a program to promote reading and dissemination of art history from multiple perspectives, addressing how art is disseminated on social media and other digital platforms. This second edition of this series will feature Arte compacto, Miguel Ángel Hernández, Mayte Gómez Molina and Lorena Pérez-Jácome. The profiles of each of the guests are diverse and encompass the dissemination of art from the academic world, museums, journalism, and literature.

 

Miguel Ángel Hernández is a writer and professor of art history at the University of Murcia. Among his essays on art and visual culture, the following stand out: Yo estoy en la imagen: ensayos afectivos y ficciones críticas (2024), La so(m)bra de lo real (2021), El arte a contratiempo: historia, obsolescencia, estéticas migratorias (2020), El don de la siesta (2020) o Materializar el pasado (2012). He is the author of the short storytelling collections Infraleve: lo que queda en el espejo cuando dejas de mirarte (2004), Demasiado tarde para volver (2019) y Cuaderno […] duelo (2010) y de los diarios Presente continuo (2016), Diario de Ithaca (2016), Aquí y ahora (2019) y Tiempo por venir (2024). He is also the author of four novels published by Anagrama: Intento de escapada (2013), El instante de peligro (2015), El dolor de los otros (2018) and Anoxia (2023). His work has been translated into English, French, German, Portuguese, and Italian.