MARTIN KÁMEN

DEATH’S HEAD

18. 9. – 21. 10. 2013

Many people put great emphasis on how they want to look like on photographs, both for themselves and for other people. It is therefore common to show dead persons up in their best possible picture. A question then remains: Why we do not fulfil equivalently the wishes of a man who presents himself dogmatically as a fictitious person? In a wrestling show, a champion is identified with a specific mask and adored because of the same. A theatrical or carnival mask reflects certain emotions. Members of a clan, faith or sect use masks for rituals or fighting and their masking serves for their identification. In the world of bdsm culture, there are dominas who prove their power through their masks, and on the other hand submissive individuals who get their desirable image by denying their identity. Animus and Anima are fighting with Persona. Some people use masks throughout their lives to conceal their real appearance before the public. On the other hand there are those types who hide their extravagant or fetishistic persona before the social community. In this way we either let our imaginative ego die in us to have it replaced by a persona, or we would be killed by a persona through which we live for others, whereas our real ego becomes dead. „A persona is what somebody actually cannot be supposed to be, but what he and others indeed believe to be.“ C. G. Jung. DEATH’S HEAD is a set of photographic portraits of masked identity in fetishistic denotations of imagery of deceased.
Martin Kámen (*1982, AVU), cofounder of The Chemistry Gallery. He has had many solo and group exhibitions in the CR and abroad, his work is in the collections of NG in Prague. www.martinkamen.cz