Project for a Masquerade (Hiroshima)

Screening with Black Drop.

Project for a Masquerade (Hiroshima) (still) 2010 Courtesy the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York

Emerging from Simon Starling’s ongoing interest in British sculptor Henry Moore, this film proposes a performance combining the 16th-century Japanese Noh play Eboshi-ori, about a noble boy named Ushiwaka who tries to move on from his past by disguising himself, with the Cold War saga surrounding Moore’s 1965 sculpture Nuclear Energy. As the details of the play unfold, an Osakan mask maker crafts a mask to represent each new cast member taking on a role from the original story.

Simon Starling is an English artist living in Copenhagen, Denmark, and was the recipient of the prestigious Turner Prize in 2005. Starling’s work is widely exhibited, and can be found in many permanent collections worldwide. He is a professor of fine art at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, Germany.