Kasper Bosmans’s new project The Fuzzy Gaze, commissioned by EMΣT for the exhibition, examines the shifting roles animals have occupied in the human world over time. The work – a 30 metre long mural – loosely investigates the history and development of the animal-human gaze in the form of a procession. Ιt highlights the various roles we assign to animals: companions, entertainers and commodities shaped to serve our desire for utility, spectacle or comfort. Horses, teddy bears, donkeys and feline eyes appear in scenes ranging from the household to the circus. Evocative and rebus-like, they reveal minute zoological details and fragments of regional lore, layering local specificity with universal resonance. The work re-creates the feeling of walking through a zoo, caught in the unblinking stare of beasts; or sitting in a circus, where trained gestures and rehearsed mannerisms flicker by, rapid and mesmerising. Heraldic stylisation and the use of the caparison – an ornamental covering spread over a horse’s saddle or harness – is a recurring reference of one form of the aesthetic commodification of animals by humans in European history. One might also notice the bored glazed-over eyes peering out from a variety of man-made contexts specifically designed for animals: the zoo, the circus, the farm. 

The work is part of the Residency Program of the Project SUB 6.4 “Actions to promote Greek cultural exports and strengthen the Greek cultural name by the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens”, implemented within the framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0”, and funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.