A new public artwork by Berlin-based artist Klaus Weber, presented by Equitable Vitrines
Opening Reception:
Thursday, May 26 6–9 pm
The installation is viewable 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the lobby of the Equitable Life Building
Equilibre Trunk is a manifestation of Weber’s longstanding interest in death masks and consists of several dozen specimens from his personal collection, re-cast and patinated through a secretive process.
Weber's collection serves to convey the utter breadth and diversity of human experience, while tacitly pointing to death the mysterious crucible that ultimately connects us all. There are varying sentiments conveyed by these all-too-real impressions of the dead and living: some visages seem relieved and at peace, while others transmit a sense of the primordial struggle for consciousness. As we walk among the faces, we are met by fear, bravery, resignation, ecstasy, ambivalence, and a host of subtleties beneath and between.
Planted among the anonymous are recognizable figures from modern history (Vladimir Lenin, Bertolt Brecht, Friedrich Nietzsche), along with several "immortals" of the big screen (Goldie Hawn, Buster Keaton, Salma Hayek). The result is disorienting: an intimate yet slightly untrustworthy meditation on life and death; fact and artifice; sincerity and something more complex.
Equitable Vitrines is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that curates and produces public artworks for display throughout Los Angeles. Equitable Vitrines chooses unconventional sites for the display of artwork and subsequently challenges artists to conceptualize works that will communicate with and challenge the audiences inhabiting those environments.
Back
