Stage Fright

<p>On my last visit to Paris a year ago, I was struck by a set of five headless puppets. The series, entitled TRISTZ INSTITUTT, was hanging from the ceiling of Le Crédac’s main gallery, as part of the group show <em>J’aime le rose pâle et les femmes ingrates</em>. Curated by Sarah Tritz, the exhibition featured an assembly of her own and hand-picked peers’ work from different contexts—from high profile contemporary artists like Maria Lassnig to remarkable ‘outsiders’ like Paul End—in an idiosyncratic spatial arrangement. “The <em>Institutt</em> is my studio, a place where the sparseness of means brings me total independence”, she later revealed in the curatorial text.</p> <p>This was the first time I saw Tritz’s work up close and I was immediately taken with those small, clumsy hanging figures. It was a very strange feeling: I had an immediate urge to know their names. Not to read the work titles on the exhibition map, but to call them by their names, as if they could speak up and introduce themselves. On their hand-sewn, pastel-colored turtleneck sweaters, some puppets carried barely legible scribbled notes while others held miniature pendant versions of artworks featured in the group show, like lucky charms. I half expected them to come alive, standing up from their little cardboard stools to greet me like a friend. But they were too tired or too self-enclosed to play host. “Go ahead and see the show for yourself”, their absent mouths seemed to mumble, and I humbly took their advice…</p>