The work of Helena Cabello and Ana Carceller focuses on questions of identity. In different formats and languages, they practise art as a tool for invalidating the notion of a fixed identity in order to widen the possible constructions of the subject, both individually and socially. Their early works were a reflection on the representation of the double and the idea of the self. They produced double images of their bodies (either wrapped in stockings or as silhouettes of their heads joined at the neck with seams), performing an action, or linked by personal objects such as watches or jeans, or, as in this work, by the more sexually explicit body parts, invariably silenced in the history of Western visual representation. ‘The term that Cabello/Carceller use to refer to their own works is “somatic fictions”. Whether written, filmed or photographed, bodies are their claims, their life conditions, their exercises of desire and its visibility. They are active bodies, not objects; they are the subjects of the action.’ (Manuel Segade: ‘Just what is it that makes today’s bodies so different, so appealing?’, in Cabello/Carceller. Borrador para una trama en curso. Madrid: CA2M, 2017, p. 27 [exh. cat.])

Traced directly from the artists’ bodies, their silhouettes appear drawn on the wall. A pair of female genitalia made up of small fragments from a broken mirror have been inserted in the wall so that they reflect one another. In this way, Cabello/Carceller claim women’s sexuality and their right to show it, as well as the freedom to choose one’s own sexual options. The title reinforces the message: by saying Ya no me importa tu mirada (I no Longer Care about your Gaze), they make it clear that censorship or the approval of others are no longer decisive factors in one’s behaviour. Moreover, the fact that the drawings are hung at an unusual height in an exhibition space hint at the displacement and marginalisation of the representation of the female sex throughout history. In addition, with the incorporation of small fragments from a broken mirror, the artists suggest the idea of scars or wounds.

As they themselves explain: ‘We opted for a traditional method of representation: drawing. Although, in our case, the represented image contained a discourse, short-circuited by other referents, that situated it in a place far removed from possible biologic interpretations. Our work was made with pencil on the wall and somehow died on it. Our drawn sexes were surrounded by our silhouettes, also drawn and penetrated by mirrors, a conceptual metaphor that landed them in the world of the surreal.’ (Helena Cabello and Ana Carceller, 1998)