HANTU (WEBER + DELSAUX) . Masks
During the confinement French duo Hantu (weber + delsaux) decided to respond to the current crisis by developing a series of photographs around self-made masks that interrogate this object that has been so violently introduced in our daily lives. Seemingly lighthearted, these masks are also a clear protest to the imposed restrictions and can in that sense clearly be brought in relation with the various masks that were developed by the Dadaists in Zurich when they responded to their own particular crisis, for instance through the masks by Marcel Janco. These masks were first presented during an online performance talk on the occasion of an equally online exhibition on the Bureau Doove website.
Hantu work with an animist concept of the body, the relation of a being and its environment.
The work of the duo in the field of live art, is realised in collaboration with scientists, robotics, biologists, anthropologists and people encountered during their travels to various parts of the world. It deals with our relationship with our environment, our consciousness and our collective memory, our ghosts. They have realised a body of work consisting of more 20 projects, bringing together texts, songs, films and photography in combination with performance. These exploratory performances sometimes develop in-situ (Norwegian Lapland, Bogor, Mentawai/Indonesia, Monthelon/France, Plymouth/UK, Taipei…), sometimes in the form of urban renditions (Chapelle historique du Bon Sauveur in Montreal, Kesenian Institute in Jakarta, Palais de Tokyo and Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature or Faculty of Medicine in Paris) without prioritizing resources used which can be either technologically sophisticated or very rudimentary.
Pascale Weber is an essayist and performer. She works on our connection to the land and the individual or collective identity (memorial reconstitution and identity construction) particularly by addressing the rites (Indonesian), ghosts of the past and memory of the corps. She addresses the issue of gender and representations of the feminine body, desire and sexuality. She continuously inscribes her presence and body language with atmospheric element and the vegetable environment.
Jean Delsaux is a visual artist. His focus is the perception of space ahaving realised multiple urban installations on the perception of the vacuum. His work with multi-screen installations make him experiment with the relations we establish via the image with the world surrounding us, considering image and representation systems. For him, a work of art is not an object to look at, but a space of experience through which – or in which – we situate ourselves.
More info on http://www.hantu.fr