Gnòthi seautòn, esercizi d’illusione : Le Xerox Actions di Hudinilson Jr. allo specchio del mito

This paper aims to investigate the Xerox practice of Brazilian artist Hudinilson Urbano Jr. (São Paulo, 1957-2013) through a cross-cultural dialogue with Western mythology. Promoting a focus that reveals the heuristic potential of the xerographic gesture, the study employs the figure of Narcissus and the mirror of Dionysus to anachronically question the act of knowing oneself through the image. Hudinilson Jr.’s ‘exercises of seeing’ take him beyond the mere encounter with the mirror, where the body, as it performs on the photocopier, likewise dismembers itself into xerographic fragments that rewrite its identity, desire, and function.