Maria Hassabi’s Mirrors opens at the Breeder

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WHAT’S ON:

The Breeder, Athens

The Breeder proudly unveils MIRRORS, Maria Hassabi’s much-anticipated second solo exhibition with the gallery. With her signature ability to blur the tangible and the ephemeral, Hassabi invites viewers into a meditative exploration of how images—both physical and metaphorical—shape our perception of reality.

At the center of the exhibition is the installation Mirrors, first debuted at Art Basel Unlimited in June 2024. This commanding piece comprises nine photographs framed in golden acrylic mirrors, creating a dynamic interplay of distortion and reflection. The images, featuring figures rendered in muted tones, capture the fleeting movements of dancers. Through the mirrors, Hassabi fractures and abstracts the human form, transcending the limitations of direct observation. The result is a profound commentary on how media refracts and manipulates our view of the body. As viewers gaze into these works, their own reflections become inextricable from the images, sparking an infinite loop of introspection.

Complementing this centerpiece is a new series of paintings, where elongated gold-leaf figures stretch across pristine white backgrounds. Echoing the abstraction process in the photographs, these works distill the essence of the posed body into surfaces that evoke the texture of skin—fragile, distorted, and undeniably still. Despite their descriptive clarity, the figures exude an unsettling breathlessness, a profound stillness that contrasts sharply with the vibrancy of movement.

Through MIRRORS, Hassabi masterfully examines the fragmentation of identity in an era dominated by digital imagery and fleeting impressions. Her works beckon us to slow down, to re-engage with the tactile and the corporeal. By dismantling the boundaries between stillness and movement, presence and illusion, viewer and subject, she reclaims a delicate sensitivity often dulled by the relentless consumption of images. The golden hues in her work, warm and intimate, encourage a deeper, more embodied understanding of self.

This exhibition continues themes Hassabi introduced in her immersive 2023 installation, I’ll Be Your Mirror, at Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong. MIRRORS deepens that conversation, offering a moment of pause and profound reflection in a fragmented world.