#65

 

Claudia Larcher

FACE Á FACE

solo show

 

03/06/2021 - 31/07/2021

opening week-end 05-06/06/2021, 11am - 7pm

For her third solo show at 22,48 m², Claudia Larcher, far from her usual architectural landscapes, presents a new work based on a selection of some popular emojis that we all probably use in our daily chats: a tearful face, a joyful one, an eye-rolling gesture, a smile, a neutral look, a happy-cheeky expression, an unhappy face and an in-love emoji. In November 2019, Larcher had these digital pictograms translated into analogs by Sinhala mask carvers as part of an artist-in-residence program in cooperation with the One World Foundation in Sri Lanka. The town of Ambalangoda, on the south western coast of Sri Lanka is famous for its traditional mask carving. The masks produced there were originally used by the population for dancing rituals in order to drive evil demons away, but today they are mostly used for tourism purposes. Larcher had the emoticons carved as masks in a traditional way and therefore associated them with signs and rituals that – actually – could not differ more from their origins. However, a common link between them can be found: the reference to the mask as a symbol for the loss of the (natural) face. 

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PRESS RELEASE