Of Myths and Masks -

Anyone who views works by Philip Metz will find her- or himself caught up in a state between amusement and uneasiness. Metz’s tragicomic scenarios force you to declare your own position, to seek yourself in them.

Cultural appropriation, the creation of stereotypes, the construction of identity and racist hierarchies, the continuing effect of colonial constellations, but also the emancipation of dominant white ideas and the self-determined re-creation of what is one's own, are central themes in many of Metz's works. He ranges from the social to the personal, mirrors the biographical in the metaphorical, and encourages self-exposure or self-recognition. As an Afro-German woman, I share the experience of being confronted with stereotyped ideas about black people or "Africa", and I understand art as a means of making these experiences tangible, as an attempt to gain control over them, to reinvent identity.

From this position, the laughter provoked by Philip Metz's works is simultaneously an expression of amused understanding, bitterness and sisterly solidarity.

They seem like experiments set up with the aim of creating a visual dialogue, an emotional tête-à-tête, on a topic that is generally ignored by the great majority in Germany.

"iwishiwas" (in cooperation with Elana Katz, 2007/2009) can be seen as a reference to the racist practice of the minstrel, which can still be found even in German contemporary media. Instead of the classic blackface minstrel, in other words a white person who blacks her or his face with charcoal in order to mockingly present archetypal black bodies and what is taken to be black culture, the Afro-German artist pictures himself as white, blond and blue-eyed, creating a painfully comic reference both to the media power which creates and perpetuates racist hierarchies, and to the wish for a body that will be accepted as "normal".

In order to mockingly present archetypal black bodies and what is taken to be black culture, this work can also be seen as a reference to the racist practice of the minstrel, which can still be found even in German contemporary media. Instead of the classic blackface minstrel, in other words a white person who blacks her or his face with charcoal The exaggerated staging and thus exposure of the white view is a frequently used tool in Philip Metz's work. Afrika! is about white longing to come physically closer to fantasies of the black other. Metz presents an image of Africa with origins in the distant past that is nevertheless still dominant in the West and visible in the media. The traditionally established relationship between a passive black Object and an active Subject, the Described and the Describing, seems to be reversed when Metz as an artist shows how white people from a german village dress themselves up as colonial stereotypes for a party with the theme: "Afrika". However, the narrative remains within the frame of reference of colonial and racist pictorial knowledge. "Afrika!" poses questions concerning the possibility of subjects appropriating what is attributed to them. Failure is in the nature of the question.

Philip Metz himself often takes on the role of a black stereotype. (Iwalewa) Wunschkonzert, for instance, refers to the construction that black people have congenital musical talent; this idea is made fun of when the artist acts like a professional musician, but sings and plays the guitar badly. This performance makes a statement about so-called "positive racism". Positive racism fails to see the achievements, the expertise and the professionalism of black athletes, musicians and dancers (to name three of the fields most frequently associated with "positive" attributes), reducing them to instinct and genetically inherited physical abilities, just to mention one aspect of it...

Philip Metz invites the viewer to see and to question the uncomfortable and painful aspects of the present and the past, on which identities are based.

The ridiculousness and the violence of stereotypes, the comedy and the tragedy of identity ascriptions become palpable in Metz's works, where both amusement and criticism always have a double dimension according to which perspective they are considered from. Anyone who dares to look closely will discover the cryptic irony of Philip Metz's works, which can be a mirror exposing one's own expectations or a mischievous allusion to shared experiences.