Know Yourself

Reading note

Know Yourself belongs to the Behind the Obvious series, in which Abraham Aronovitch uses the bathroom mirror as a site of displacement between presence and perception. The scene brings together multiple figures that do not directly respond to one another, suggesting an identity out of sync with its own image. Rather than fixing a definitive face, the work reveals what remains partially inaccessible within the act of self-observation.

Facing the mirror, the figure encounters a reflection that fails to coincide. On the left, a faceless silhouette signals a zone that remains unformed, beyond the reach of identification. On the right, a doubled figure, traversed by unease, appears to keep its distance from what emerges. Here, the mirror offers neither confirmation nor resolution; it becomes the stage of an inner desynchronisation, where the act of looking at oneself primarily exposes a persistent shadow at the core of self-knowledge.