The Papua New Guinea masks which Antonio Cereda shows us here are not those which our collecting fetish has made into museum sculptures – lifeless objects – but rather action masks, an integral part of their wearers, indistinguishable from them (think, in particular, of face painting) and, as such, living things. It is a vitality expressed via the rituals of the Sing Sing dance festivals in which body movements become rhythm and form, combining time and space. And perhaps here, too, it is still possible to detect a further intimate implication between the photographer and his subject: both mask and photograph are a matter of manifesting and concealing and reveal by concealing.
(Ivan Leopoldo Bargna – ricercatore e docente di Etnoestetica e Etnologia – Milano Bicocca)
Technical characteristics:
Format: cm 28.5 x 28.5
Pages: 145
Print: 4+4 colour offset plus anti-fingerprint varnish
Cardboard/silk hard cover with applied colour plate
Wire mesh binding
Twice-coated paper, 170 grams per square metre
Index with image reproductions and brief captions
Three language edition: Italian, English, French
Slip jacket
