Around Living Things

Around Living Things comprises a series of collaged image compositions that have been translated into drawings. They engage with sculptural representations of ancient actors from Greek and Roman comedy, distinguished by their characteristic masks. Through digital and analog overlays, the masked figures, usually situated in the silence of the museum, are here brought into direct dialogue with the dynamics of living life, exploring the continuities and transformations of forms of expression across millennia. In the drawings, these old comedians are not merely historical artifacts, but timeless mirrors of emotions and roles. They speak of universal patterns of being, of the play of masks and self-presentation. Between antiquity and the present, a continuum of artistic storytelling emerges. One that poses the question of how humanity perceives and stages itself. 

The installation in SH()P makes use of scenographic elements. Along the gallery walls, almost like a form of cladding, black panels create a backdrop into which the drawings from Around Living Things are embedded.

Silva Agostini’s artistic interventions disrupt situations and habits, bringing hidden forms of things and places into view.