More than 60 masks coming from the collection Barber-Mueller of Geneva
are exhibited in the temporary rooms of prestigious Musée
Jacquemart-Andre, boulevard Haussmann. The majority of these
masks are presented for
the first time at the public. By their diversity, they translate
the cultural feeling of the folklores of the world. Africa,
Oceania, Europe, America always masked their people and tribes for
occasions as varied as from the funerary ceremonies among the Chinese,
Iranian or javanais as for tibetan dramas or Japanese women. Art
tribal dresses the expressions with the spirit of god, the phantasms,
the
incarnations or quite simply physical protection. A wolf out of
leather and iron of the First World War answers the helmet barricaded
of a goal of hockey. The grostesque one of a mimicry makes fun of
a scary smile of Sri Lanka. The novelist and poet Michel Butor
illustrates this exhibition with several personalized texts, revealing
a human perception of these petrified faces which speak to us like as
many mirrors engraved in unconscient. The report at time and
death is permanent. The masked man is an uncovered man.
