Augustus’s eyes, suddenly beady and glinting, enact this comparison of different ideas of imperiousness: the Roman emperor, a god unmoved by the trivialities of human emotion, is dragged into a modern political sphere of fallibility and corruption. By undermining each images’ claims to authority – the politicians’ eyes are trapped in an unmoving mask of pocked stone – Mlászho ruffles the confidence of power’s images of itself, sowing confusion and ambiguity in the midst of certainty and strength.

Text by Ben Street