JOHNKARTS STUDIOS AND GALLERY: African Mask....

JOHNKARTS STUDIOS AND GALLERY: African Mask.The mask is one of the most basic and recognizable of all forms, and for good reason. One way early humans made sense of the universe was to personify its forces, and the most visible form of personification was the face. Masks have long been central to religious rituals, serving as tools of transformation and bridges to the spirit world. They have figured in ceremonies intended to ensure fertility and raise the dead, make crops grow and rain fall, kill enemies, ward off evil and cure sickness. They have been used by soldiers and celebrators of Lent, astronauts and action heroes, hockey players and fencers, firefighters and welders.

The ubiquity of the mask, regardless of time, place or purpose, is the impetus behind “Mask,”

The impact of masks increases when contemporary art turns to themes like identity or gender, as well as to certain current events. Hans Haacke echoes the Abu Ghraib images with a photograph of a man wearing a hood made from the starred portion of the American flag. Closer to the art world, Miriam Berkley pays tribute to the subversive Guerrilla Girls collective with a portrait of one of its founding members, known as Frida Kahlo, wearing the group’s signature gorilla mask. And Jürgen Klauke makes a large mural of news photos dating from 1972 to 2000, showing images of hooded heads, a kind of rogues’ gallery that evokes a nightmarish history of hijackings, kidnappings, bank robberies and terrorism.

But masks can also be subtle things in the hands of contemporary artists, little more than a hint of something not quite natural. This is the case in a photograph that Gillian Wearing made of herself in a mask of her mother’s face taken from a youthful photograph. Ms. Wearing seems a bit stiff but otherwise normal — until you see the telltale holes for the eyes.

Outside, on the building’s facade, Reena Spaulings uses the show’s title as a verb, with an awning that masks the gallery’s name and address. This bit of irreverence does nothing to disturb the suspicion that masks are us, a fixed yet fluid cultural constant.

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