Sacrifice – What is worth more, art or life?  

We have recently been faced with this choice. Agnus Dei, the sacrificial Lamb of God in Madrid’s Prado, like all masterpieces of the Western art canon, is at risk of damage from climate protests. Does this act follow an initiation rite that is at the beginning of every new culture and always requires a sacrifice? Why is autonomous art being contrasted with life in the struggle to “save” the earth? Is the practice of artistic self-empowerment at stake with this question, as a way of knowing the world and an instance of enlightenment?
Under the pretense of a culture of sacrifice, Svenja Schüffler initiates an artistic practice of concealment and revelation, behind which there are works that evade controlled reception. She will masterfully appropriate prominent masterpieces such as Agnus Dei, including their historical framing, and wound them as a sculptural element of a sacrifice in order to vaguely conceal secret works behind them.