Linus Borgo

The Paris Review

The Review’s Review: Reproducing Bodies

September 23, 2021

LINUS BORGO, BED OF STARS: SELF-PORTRAIT WITH ELSINA AND ZIP, 2021, OIL ON CANVAS, 46 X 68″ (DETAIL).

Linus Borgo makes consistently uncanny and gorgeous work, some of which will be featured at Steve Turner Gallery in Los Angeles this January. My favorite of their self-portraits—deadlocked with Fuzzy FTM Transsexual Amputee Plays with Magic Wand and Poppers (Self Portrait)is Bed of Stars: Self Portrait with Elsina and Zip, in which Linus lies in a pool of deep blue, star-stamped sheets, an oblique banner of sunlight across his torso and thighs, his body filling the frame, toes nearly poking through the border. It’s a work that questions what it is to reproduce an image, a pet, a body part. Of course, this is the terrain of figurative art. But duplicates also appear within the piece: Linus’s left bionic forearm and its phantom mirror not only each other, but his right forearm; the cat dozing by his ankle complements the stuffed one cradling his elbow; the bedspread underneath him simulates the sky above. The effect is overwhelming, and intensified by meticulousness: blades of hair golden in the sun, creases in the pillowcase, a naval piercing, cursive lettering on a nameplate necklace. In this representation of the self, there is an abundance of selves existing side by side simultaneously. What more could you ask for in a self-portrait? —Jay Graham

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