Masterpieces
Masterpieces emerges from hundreds of drawings Laufer created during visits to the British Museum in 2006–2007, forming her private collection within the museum's space. The result is a totem-like assemblage of crumpled black and white drawings.
The artwork navigates colonial-era museum concepts, addressing exoticism and the interplay of presentation and perception. Public collections prompt inquiries about place, time, and belonging, disrupting objects from familiar settings, rendering their original purposes dysfunctional in imposed contexts. Fetishized objects in museums become avenues for fantasies, offering both private and political reflections.
Drawing from museum collections, an erstwhile unfashionable practice, grants freedom from academic constraints. Laufer, initially drawn in by the formal seduction, embraced the supposedly archaic process with perverse pleasure. The result is Masterpieces, a series of multi-layered acetate collages. Redrawing, arranging, and rearranging on thin material added complexity. The work manipulates 'transparency,' 'reflection,' and 'manipulation' both literally and metaphorically, offering a humorous, erotic, and poetic exploration of museum artifacts.
