II
Changing Rooms

Caroline Mesquita, Grand perroquet; Miroir, 2024
Patinated brass
190 × 55 × 95 cm and 77 × 60 cm
Foto: Jean-Christophe Lett
Located at the main hall’s adjoining rooms are five changing rooms. These cubicles are not only an essential element in the staging of a reconstructed spa and bathing landscape at the HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, they also invite humorous voyeurism: each of the cubicle doors has a brass peephole through which the viewer can look into the cubicle’s interior. However, it is not people changing their clothes that appear through these peepholes, but cinematic works that are paradigmatic of Mesquita’s artistic practice.
Based on her sculptures and installations, the cinematic works of Caroline Mesquita create fantastic universes with each individual film producing a reconfiguration of dreamlike narratives. The short films can also be interpreted as alternative or otherworldly realities posing questions about the coexistence of animals, humans and technology. In these films, she brings her abstract rhythmic and geometric dolls to life, often in a snapshot, a moment in which a figure opens and closes its eyes (Clin d’Œil) or a figure moves its eyebrows and mouth in seemingly minimal mutations (Noctambules Roger). At other times, she lets her creatures dance in a group (Le Groupe) or grow into each other, wriggling and crawling. Mesquita also repeatedly stages herself as the protagonist of her films, for example dyeing her hand golden only to discolor it again, (La Main) or letting a sculptural, robot-like and larger-than-life hand sculpture interact with other human protagonists, thus creating a vision of what technological progress can have in common with human life.
Mesquita’s cinematic works are characterized by an almost imperfect aesthetic: she uses pixilation, a stop-motion technique in which the actors, like their metal counterparts, are photographed frame by frame to appear in an animated video – a technique that we know from the heyday of modernism and familiar to us from film and art history. Like her sculptures, her cinematic works possess a timeless quality that makes them challenging to situate in the present moment. They evoke imagery of Bauhaus figures or futuristic forms, enhancing their dreamlike impact. At the same time, Mesquita elevates her works to a fictitious, abstract realm, using them as a medium to express ideas and emotions, stirring the viewer’s own feelings. Mesquita is never interested in creating an absolute illusion in the sense of Jean Baudrillard, who described an absolute illusion as a false or misleading perception. She is more interested in telling stories, and as such there is always a deeply literary component to her practice.
In addition to the changing rooms, this room shows a series of metal paintings: a floating hand, a drop in the air, and a wall sculpture, which both complement and decorate the installation and can be interpreted as emblems for the installation’s overall themes. One of these paintings serves as a mirror for a sculpture; a bird looks at itself in a reflection. The golden, giant hand, which has served as a motif in numerous films, is located in the side room, where its superhuman robotic structure raises questions about the interactions between humans, nature and technology.
Grand perroquet, 2024
Patinated brass
190 × 55 × 95 cm
Miroir, 2024
Patinated brass
77 × 60 cm
Félin rouge (moyen), 2024
Patinated brass
85 × 25 × 29 cm
La Main, 2024
Video, color, silent
1:34 min.
Le Trou, 2024
Video, color, silent
1:13 min.
Le Groupe, 2024
Video, color, silent
2:46 min.
The Machine Room, 2024
Video, color, silent
1:39 min.
Clin d’Œil, 2024
Video, color, silent
3:45 min.
Noctambules Roger, 2024
Video, color, silent
2:19 min.
Goutte, 2024
Patinated brass
77 × 60 cm
Radio, 2024
Patinated brass
56 × 44 cm