Looking through Language is from a series of sculptures based on Jan and Joël Martel’s Cubist concrete trees, designed for the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris. The Martel trees were destroyed after the exhibition and are now only traceable in photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Boyce was inspired by the angularity of the trees and used their geometric planes as a base for the mask. Etched upon the surface of the mask are a cascade of letters that Boyce, who has always been interested in language and often interweaves it in his practice, saw within the straight lines of the geometric Martel Trees.
Boyce’s has always been fascinated by masks and their ability to both conceal and to project. Masks are usually made to be worn, to hide the face and present an alternative identity or character. It is this mix of presence (visible mask, hidden face) and absence (of eyes, identity, intention) that gives them their aura. Their power comes not from what they display but from what they conceal.
MARTIN BOYCE (Scottish, 1967)
Steel, patinated and waxed brass, etched and waxed brass, etching ink
Acquired in 2024
