Exhibition Tour
Caroline Mesquita: Verdet Bath

As the title of her exhibition Verdet Bath suggests, Caroline Mesquita has transformed HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark into a bathhouse-like landscape, where her patinated sculptures converge across three distinct areas: the pool, the cabins, and the source. The title Verdet refers to an ancient term for vert-de-gris, the natural oxidation of brass, which gives it a distinctive green hue — the very color of the pool in the exhibition. Historically, verdet was also a material used in medicine, reinforcing the idea of transformation and regeneration that permeates Mesquita’s work.

Movement plays a central role in her sculptural composition. In an unusual approach, Mesquita combines new works with a selection of older pieces, some created several years ago. The articulated sculptures in this room — at least at the head, arms, and legs — can be arranged in different configurations depending on the intended effect. Emphasizing the bathing theme, she has also dismantled certain figures, leaving only legs or torsos emerging from the ​“water’s surface.” These fragmented bodies seem to oscillate between materialization and dissolution, as if they were being immersed in or reborn from the pool — a kind of bain de jouvence (fountain of youth), a mythical reset where transformation is always at play. The installation is animated by a constant flow of activity, revealing itself progressively as viewers move through the space.

At the heart of the exhibition, Mesquita’s large pool, designed as a pedestal-like bathing landscape, serves as a social space. The figures within it share a common experience, engaging with one another — perhaps beyond the need for a shared language. Her sculptures embody a multifaceted performativity, with identities and relationships that remain fluid, adaptable, and unfixed in both materiality and context. Like the brass that oxidizes into verdet, they undergo shifts and mutations, dissolving and reforming in an endless cycle.

Adjacent to the main hall, five changing rooms play a key role to the immersive recreation of this bathing landscape. These cubicles introduce an element of playful voyeurism, each featuring a brass peephole inviting visitors to peer inside. Yet, rather than glimpsing people in the midst of changing, viewers instead discover cinematic works that are emblematic of Mesquita’s artistic practice.

Completing this spa-like environment, a fountain with multiple taps stands in the apse, marking the symbolic beginning of a cycle. The source, like a well of transformation, reinforces the idea of fluid identities and perpetual metamorphosis.

With this installation, Mesquita draws on the long history of bathing culture, which in Europe dates back to antiquity. Public baths were not only places of cleansing and hygiene but also essential social hubs, fostering entertainment, community, and a sense of equality among visitors.

Through her fountain and bathhouse environment, Mesquita seems to weave a narrative that evokes the magic of a fairytale. But is she truly depicting an alternate world or is she instead challenging our human-centered perception of ​“the social”, encouraging us to rethink it as an interconnected realm where humans are not dominant but merely one presence among many? Rather than showing a dystopian future, she invites us to imagine a world of harmonious coexistence, where people and animals share the same space in a constant state of transformation. In this world, a material in flux changes shape, dissolves, and reforms together in an endless cycle.

Exhibition Page