HEROES AND GHOSTS by Mathis Gasser

ロンドンを拠点に活動するスイス人アーティスト、マティス・ガッサー(Mathis Gasser)の作品集。各ページに不気味な空気を纏って直立する人物が配置された本書はすべて、ハリウッドの大作映画、パルプ・ホラー、SF、漫画、コミックなどのポップカルチャーから、秘伝的なものや芸術作品まで、さまざまなメディアから借用されたファウンドフォトを油絵によって再構築した作品で構成されている。架空のキャラクターたちによる人類学的絵画図鑑とも言える一冊である。各キャラクターは物語の中で社会秩序における暴力、抵抗、混沌の力を体現し、現代の自由民主主義が抱える抑圧された恐怖や不安を掘り起こし、それらを明るみに出す役割を担っているのだが、作者は人物を物語やメディアの文脈から切り離しキャンバスに移すことで、キャラクターの行動における点と点を結び、その本質を見極めることを鑑賞者に促している。

In the middle of each painting stands a lone figure, facing the viewer, eerily still and, in some cases, menacing. The figures are borrowed from various media, ranging from pop culture, including Hollywood blockbusters, pulp horror, science fiction, manga and comics, to esoterica and works of art. Heroes and Ghosts is an ongoing series of figurative oil-on-canvas paintings by Swiss-British artist Mathis Gasser. This anthropological pictorial atlas of fictional characters is peopled by ghostly (anti-)heroes and (anti-)heroines, figures and narratives of the past that abide in our collective memory, continually transformed by contemporary culture—at an ever-increasing pace due to growing demand in the digital realm—and resurfacing in all sorts of different media. Gasser removes these figures from their narrative and media contexts and transfers them to the canvas, where they stand as if frozen in mid action, though it’s up to the viewer to connect the dots and divine the nature of that action. In the stories in which they debut, these characters often embody the forces of violence, resistance or chaos within the social order, dredging up the suppressed fears and anxieties of contemporary liberal democracies and bringing them to light. They circulate in the creative realm of the now globalized systems that begat them, functioning as a means of cultural management of social tension, civil commotion and revolt.

by Mathis Gasser

REGULAR PRICE ¥8,580  (tax incl.)

hardcover
200 pages
184 x 270 mm
color
2021

published by EDITION PATRICK FREY