Woman in Mask

In creating the work, Anna Baumgart was inspired by a press photo presenting Davinia Turrell, a victim of the terrorist attack in London’s underground in 2005. The artist imported the figure of the woman covering her face with a burn dressing from a two-dimensional photographic image into a three dimensional sculpture. Thus the perspective was changed – whilst on the photograph the woman can only be viewed “from the front”, it is possible to walk around the sculpture and see it from all sides. Baumgart underlines the difference – only the front is covered in polychrome, the backside is a simple white surface. The artist thus reveals the shortcomings and distortions of the media presentation: it only shows “parts“ of the woman, just as it presents only selected aspects of reality. By using the image of the wounded woman, the press photo has, to an extent, appropriated her story, making her a symbol of the assault and a universal image of the victim. The photos have circulated worldwide, and the story has for a long time remained in the centre of the media buzz, which forever has created an immediate association between the London tragedy, the photo taken shortly after the explosion, and Davinia Turrell herself.

The Woman in Mask has also another title: Weronika AP – a reference to the biblical Veronica – a woman who paused to wipe the face of Jesus on his way to Calvary. His face was imprinted on the veil which has gained the status of the true image (icona vera). However, neither in the press photo nor in Baumgart’s work is the true image of Veronica visible. The cloth-dressing is a mask in this case.

The mask is a relatively frequent motif in the works of Anna Baumgart, and seems to be of significance in the artist’s work exploring mainly feminist themes, as the relations between the mother and the daughter, woman and man, or woman and society. Baumgart often concentrates on the appropriation of women’s images by the patriarchal mechanisms of culture and on revealing the feminine element in relation to the male one. Weronika AP has a similar effect. The media images of terror show the woman in a mask (dressing) – she is not here for herself but as an image of the assault in genere.

Izabela Kopania