The great thing about celebrations, in all their forms, is that they offer us the opportunity to become, for a given period of time, a collective body.
Like theatre or carnival, celebrations enable us to redefine ourselves, to play other roles, to mask ourselves and become part of a troupe or procession. Celebrations allow us to let go of our identities and the burdens that come with them. Suspended above the systems and orders that govern societies, we can joyfully embrace different processes of dissociation and begin new narratives, stories that often set us free.
Then, inexorably, the party ends, the masks come off and the joy collapses. Agnes Scherer’s new sculptural installation, presented in the exhibition Stargazing Masks, is part of this movement, that of a post-event time, a moment filled with fatigue and disorder.
Next to a broom whose usefulness we may question, we see a number of objects and pieces of evidence on the floor that bear witness to the festivities that have…
