An Elementary Aesthetics of the Form: Imagining Duende 's creación en acto

Abstract: This article aspires to show that duende belongs to the sphere of action, rather than solely to that of aesthetics. I depart from Lorca's concept and demonstrate that it dialectically unifies the acts of creation, performance, and reception, and therefore it transforms the aesthetic object to a deed immersed in life and history. Viewed as such, duende affects the way in which the aesthetic field enters the broader system of social institutions, while modifying the paradigm of art as sovereign, championed by the Avant-garde at the beginning of the twentieth century. Drawing on the epistemological debates around imagination, this article posits that duende' s aptitude of continuously actualizing the work of art resides in the artistic form: the sound of the voice that sings and is heard, the shape of the body that dances and is felt, the plasticity given to and perceived in volumes, colors, words. This is possible because duende's creación en acto bridges the gulf between two fundamentally different qualities of the aesthetic object: representation and performance. The multidimensional nature of duende facilitates passages from one category to the other, thus giving way to a dialogue that is an inexorable part of the aesthetic experience.