No Sports! : Zur Ãsthetik des Bodybuldings

JÃrg Scheller

Bodybuilders are often ridiculed. However, they reveal much about our aestheticized, body-focused, perfectionist-centered way of life and its origins. In a major art historical and philosophical panorama, JÃrg Scheller suggests bodybuilders as postmodern sculptors who link to a central idea of modernity and enlightenment: man can mold himself, even newly create himself. In place of the intellectual work on the inner statue, in bodybuilding the artistic work occurs on the external statue. Sport is only a means to an end, to transform one's own existence into a radically self-referential work of art.