Cat on cat. "Cat" of Ana Nieto. Abstraction.

Instead of other thing.
Semiotics on extremes.

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Ana Nieto: "Cat", 2011. Image origin: the author.

Cat on cat: "Cat", of Ana Nieto (2011).

Strange cat. At the same time it is turned back and it is stretched over itself. It is turned back over itself and it is stretched over a frayed striped blanket tiger-like, to what it refers and that refers to it, in a crossed fire of feline inter referenciality.

There is something abstract in a cat, something strictly ornamental in its skin, what is made evident in the background in which it has been photographed. A textile pattern that all of us have seen before in some home or store.

This redundancy of cat on cat is, therefore, the first efficient cause of Ana Nieto's photo. The second is, without a doubt, the exaggerated torsion in which it has been found.

Because a cat is usually, in formal terms, something less geometric than an ellipse. Normally it shows us one head, one tail and four paws. Exactly what this cat, in the typical abandonment of itself that happens in its siesta, seems to deny us. It is very difficult to find the head. And one is wondering where their famous three feet (those of the spanish saying) should be looked for.

I think there is something sinister in the abstract photography. And this photo of a cat, that is so abstract as sinister (a little bit abstract and a little bit sinister) contributes, in my opinion, to the demonstration of this small hypothesis.

What photography, according to the dominant prejudice, should give you (the immediate recognition of a recognizable object), abstraction denies you. The recognizable that this photography should guarantee us, it is contradicted by the unrecognizable that, in fact, it gives us. Inside familiar and reassuring things it is hidden their opposite.

In conclusion. The classical genres of representation (landscape, still life, portrait) institute at the same time what is recognizable and the possibility in itself of its exact opposite, what from this moment I am going to name the abstraction-sinister.

Rubén Díaz of Corcuera.
Abstraction.
October 03. 2011