Self-Portrait in the Studio

A rare autobiographical glimpse into the life and influences of one of Europe's greatest living philosophers.

This books title, Self-Portrait in the Studioa familiar iconographic subject in the history of paintingis intended to be taken literally: the book is a self-portrait, but one that comes into view for the reader only by way of patient scrutiny of the images, photographs, objects, and paintings present in the studios where the writer has worked and still works. That is to say, Giorgio Agambens wager is to speak of himself solely and uniquely by speaking of others: the poets, philosophers, painters, musicians, friends, passionsin short, the meetings and encounters that have shaped his life, thought, and writing, from Martin Heidegger to Elsa Morante, from Herman Melville to Walter Benjamin, from Giorgio Caproni to Giovanni Urbani. For this reason, images are an integral part of the book, images thatlike those in a rebus that together form another, larger imageultimately combine with the written text in one of the most unusual self-portraits that any writer has left of himself: not an autobiography, but a faithful and timeless auto-heterography.
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