Annabel Downes speaks with Agnes Scherer about Stargazing Masks, an exhibition that turns the remnants of celebration into a reflection on the future of art in turbulent times.
Agnes Scherer is drawn to the moment after the celebration. Her work lingers in that aftermath, tracing the debris of joy and the strange melancholy that follows collective play. This sensibility runs through Stargazing Masks, her solo exhibition of sculpture, painting, and drawing at sans titre in Paris
Speaking from her studio, Scherer reflects on how the political turbulence of the past year — from Trump’s re-election to the growing strength of the far right in Europe — has reshaped her sense of play and possibility. She also discusses how she became drawn to puppetry as a way of examining society through metaphor, and how painter Peter Doig introduced her to the world of cinema; to its magical realism and narrative freedom. What emerges is a meditation on collapse and renewal, and on how art might persist when faith in the future falters.
Annabel Downes: When did the idea for Stargazing Masks begin to take shape?
Agnes Scherer: When I began working towards this show, I felt an intuition that I needed to approach things quite differently from what I’d been doing for years. The intactness of my usual narratives didn’t feel appropriate anymore. In light of what’s happening in the world, it felt more truthful to make a show about brokenness — to work with fragments of figuration rather than complete scenarios.
The political turns of the year had a big impact on me, particularly Trump’s re-election. I didn’t expect it to affect my artistic approach so directly. My work usually comes from a sense of playfulness, and I realised I’d arrived in circumstances that don’t make you want to play anymore. That was the problem I was facing.
AD: How do you see that day to day — how does it manifest in your own environment?
AS: In Germany and Austria, the extreme right has been getting stronger and more vocal. There’s a real hostility toward art and culture, a wish to erase or delegitimise them altogether. You even see it in the growing pressure on institutions such as the Salzburg Festival. For artists, it creates a real uncertainty about the future — a sense that the space for cultural life is narrowing.
AD: Did the process of making the work help you to make sense of that feeling?
AS: Yes, it did. I think I needed to find for myself a form that wasn’t just “business as usual,” but that still found a mode of play within a kind of paralysis — a state comparable to purgatory. The figures in the show exist in that unredeemed state: waiting, not quite gone, but no longer adding up to anything that makes sense. They haven’t yet been rearranged into a new order.
AD: Celebration seems to be a recurring idea in your work — as both a collective act and a form of theatre, where people can mask and transform themselves.
AS: I’ve often worked with ideas of performance and theatre, but this show feels like it comes after that. It’s more about what remains once something has ended — when the sense of excitement is over and you’re left with traces, with things that no longer quite hold together.
AD: The installation feels like the aftermath of a celebration. On the floor we see a champagne bottle, a broom, vinyl records, dead leaves, fragments of your own body, even fortune cookies. What drew you to these elements?
AS: I chose the elements quite intuitively. To me, what they have in common is that they belong to a world that once felt more optimistic — they’re celebratory things. It might look like the leftovers of a party, but for me it’s more of a metaphor for the celebration of figuration itself.
There’s always storytelling in figuration, but at some point I realised that in order to tell stories, you need to believe in a future. I was experiencing a new level of uncertainty, and the work reflects that. The broom, for example, is sweeping everything just to the edge of the space — as if pushing these fragments aside, but not quite getting rid of them.
Annabel: There’s also sickles hanging on the wall. What do these mean for you?
Scherer: For me, it’s more a symbol of harvest. I like how these circular shapes in the show oscillate between the moon, the sickle, and the idea of reaping or gathering what’s been sown. There’s also a slightly humorous nod to druidic rituals there.
AD: One of the figures on the floor holds a phone showing a starry sky. What’s happening there?
AS: One of the figures is a self-portrait. Both are looking at stars on their phones — one screen shows a Starlink formation. That comes from a real experience I had on a beach in Los Angeles, when I thought I’d seen a shooting star, a really romantic moment, but later realised it was the launch of an Elon Musk satellite. I liked the emptiness of that discovery — the stars weren’t really stars, and the face looking at them isn’t real either, but a mask. That’s how I arrived at the title Stargazing Masks. It’s an image of “nothing looking at nothing.”
AD: You use humble materials — papier mâché, felt-tip pens. What draws you to that?
AS: I always want to avoid the preciousness of materials. When a material feels too impressive, it can interfere with what’s actually being told. If I’m intimidated by its value, the work loses immediacy. So using something like felt-tip pens is about keeping that directness alive — keeping a dialogue open between the viewer and the image.
Annabel: The exhibition also includes paintings. How do they connect with the sculptural installation?
Scherer: The paintings are partly based on the idea of fragments — revisiting heads and arms that once belonged to complete figures in my earlier pictorial worlds. It’s a more abstract approach, moving back and forth between the narrative potential of a fragment of figuration and its formal qualities.
Painting on stretched canvas always brings certain conventions that can feel burdensome, both for the artist and the viewer. I think I’m interested in finding a certain freedom from those conventions, and in inventing forms that haven’t been around quite like this before.
Annabel: You’ve mentioned James Ensor and Rudolf Wacker as reference points. What connects you to them?
Scherer: They’re both artists who worked a lot with puppets and masks instead of depicting actual people. It’s a way of addressing social or existential questions without relying on individuality. When Ensor uses skulls or masks, you immediately understand it’s not about a specific person — it’s about society.
That’s something I relate to, because I often think of my figures as de-individualised, caught in a kind of suspended state. I’ve also been influenced by artists and filmmakers who analyse society through puppetry in a broader sense — Wael Shawky, Jordan Wolfson, Janet Cardiff, and even Charlie Kaufman.
When I was studying in Düsseldorf, Enrico David taught there for a year. I think we share a certain melancholy and an interest in existential subjects — I remember us talking about Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy.
AD: And Peter Doig — you were taught by him in Düsseldorf. How did that experience shape your way of thinking about painting?
AS: Something that he shared with his students and that resonated with me was his love of cinema. When I was a teenager, I lived in quite a rural place with little access to contemporary art, so my first experiences of art actually came through film — I remember seeing a Federico Fellini movie on television, and it was a revelation. So when Peter spoke about cinema and magical realism, it felt very familiar to me.
Doig has always been interested in so-called outsider artists, and that’s something he cultivated in class. That stayed with me. I think that’s why my way of developing work still feels mentally close to cinema — though I’ve never intended to make films. My next project, a 72-metre painting for Moderna Museet in Stockholm, feels, of all the things I’ve done so far, closest to film.
AD: You’ve described Stargazing Masks as a kind of purgatory — a place where pleasure is destroyed and a cycle comes to an end.
AS: Yes, exactly. For me, it’s like an unredeemed state — the figures are waiting, not quite gone, but no longer part of something that makes sense. I needed to find a form that doesn’t just continue as before, but stays with that feeling for a while, until something new can form out of it.
