Thomas Schütte

The origins of Thomas Schütte’s (b. 1954 in Düsseldorf) Basler Maske series are deeply rooted in the city’s cultural heritage. Inspired by the Düsseldorf-based artist’s major solo show at the Fondation Beyeler, staged in the winter of 2013/14, the local carnival group Alti Richtig approached Schütte with an unusual commission: to design a mask at short notice for Basel’s upcoming Fasnacht parade.

Drawing upon the powerfully expressive bald heads of his earlier United Enemies series, produced from 1992, the artist not only designed a laminated mask for the some ninety Fasnacht participants, but also created the Basler Maske series in glazed ceramic, using a complex process involving silicone moulds, basic forms and further modelling in clay.

As variations on Schütte’s well-known head sculptures, the ceramic masks focus on the face and its expression, whereby they possess both a familiar, human dimension and a satirical, grotesque quality that reveals them as primal characters rather than individuals. The universal, exaggerated traits make an immediate emotional impact on viewers. At the same time, the striking-coloured glazes – matt or high-gloss – draw attention to the design, shape and surface of the masks and thus to the material and medium-specific processes underlying their creation. They reflect the transformative potential of wearing a mask – something that Schütte had already explored with his 1994 Maske series and which he encountered anew in the form of Basel’s Fasnacht

Glazed ceramic

40,5 x 27 x 21 cm

Copyright: Thomas Schütte

Provenance: donated by the artist