Chloe’s Work

Week 6

Exercise: Transform Your Face

Transformation #1 – “I’m a bit tied up right now.”

Transformation #2 – Playing With Fire

Transformation #3 – Fragments

Turn and Face the Strange: Darcey Steinke on Our New Life with Masks

Which of the faces discussed in the text were of particular interest to you and your experience? How do you think about these faces?

I found it particularly interesting that the first masks were made for death ritual in order to ‘interface with the unknown’. It is very strange that masks were once viewed as a way to connect to other worldly spirits, especially given the current use of them that seems to result in the distancing of ourselves from each other.

I also found it poignant that Steinke mentions that she carries her history on her face. All the marks, wrinkles, pimples, scars, sunspots, baby fat and lack thereof shows the journey one has taken through life. Steinke states that the aging face is an anti-face, in that despite the fact that everyone’s faces change, society expects us to keep them the same. The disparity between aging for men and women is great, as women re expected to keep up youthful appearances, where aging is seen as more graceful in men.

Who are you without your face? How is your experience different without your face in public? Can you imagine new ways to face the world?

I really liked the quote mentioned in the article, “the face is a source from which all meaning appears” (Levinas). Thus, I feel like we are hardly people without our faces. As the article emphasizes, as humans we derive so much meaning and emotional understanding from looking at each other’s faces. Even babies are more likely to be cared for if they can respond to a face! It is evident that faces are a large part of who we are.

I have definitely found that without facial cues, it is incredibly difficult to communicate with people. Like Steinke, I also find myself struggling to recognize and connect with people, strangers or otherwise. Masks, though meant to keep us safe, have driven us apart. Being isolated in one’s house all day only to be confronted with faceless people on rare ventures into public is definitely an odd reality we are all facing. Something I have often thought about during the pandemic is the struggle that deaf people must be having. Many deaf people rely on lip reading to understand those who do not know sign language, and with everyone wearing masks, they are faced with a roadblock to communication. 

A solution to the issue of masks is to wear a clear one or a face shield. These are much more considerate of those who require visual cues for communication, such as those with disabilities. It can also help minimize the impersonality that masks create.

In regards to new ways to face the world, I think that we will have to find new ways to connect with people and express ourselves. Custom masks are one way to express aspects of our personality. Wearing masks with patterns/designs that express something about who you are is a small way of showing your ‘face’ without actually showing your face. Additionally, we could make efforts to connect with people through being more expressive in our voices, with our eyes and eyebrows, and with hand movements and gestures.

Artists and Their Work

Maurizio Cattelan

Cattelan’s Super Us is an incredibly interesting take on self portraiture. The self is ultimately composed of a collection of perceptions and ideas that other people have about us. I really like how Cattelan explored this idea by having his friends and acquaintances provide descriptions to police-composite-sketch artists.

I love his goal of visualizing how perceptions of others can never form a complete picture. It demonstrates the multiplicity and fractured nature of the self.

Janine Antoni

Antoni’s series of photographs of her mother and father dressed up as each other is truly an interesting take on the self. Many people believe that couples eventually come to look like each other, and in a way, they become one person. I like how she played on this idea by dressing her parents up as each other. This extends the idea of self onto one’s partner, or ‘other half’ as society commonly likes to define it as.

Gillian Wearing

Gillian Wearing is an artist relevant to this week’s discussion, as her work plays on the idea of the multiplicity of the self in many ways.

“Instagram is like old family albums – they only show the good things in life.”

Gillian Wearing

In an interview for Another Magazine, Gillian talks about how she believes that technology and social media are giving us a new way to invent ourselves. Through editing apps, we are able to present our identity and idea of our self in any way we please. Thus, we are reaching a point where the self becomes a highly curated collection of who we want to be perceived as, and maybe not who we actually are.

I liked her self portrait as her mother, as it is a very cool exercise to see the aspects of one’s self reflected in the person who created one’s life. It explores the self in relation to the familial history and ties associated with it.

I really loved this project of Gillian’s, as it shows each person’s self that they present to the world, yet undermines it by having them hold a sign that shows the self that they hide from the world. I think this project is very poignant, in that it subverts the true self and the perceived self, or self that society expects us to portray.

Erwin Wurm

“Nowadays, you’re not allowed to say certain things; there is control everywhere. Free speech and free thought are fading away. So I ask questions and wonder where is this all going?

Erwin Wurm

Wurm’s sculptures reflect the idea of interrogation; both inquiry of the self and his audience.

One Minute Sculptures focus on societal pressures manifested in the form of discomfort and embarrassment using the body as the focal point.

One minute sculptures invite participants to engage with objects in different ways; ways that may be embarrassing or awkward. It’s a fun activity to see how you can manipulate your body until it’s not really you any more. You become the sculpture.

Cindy Sherman

“I am trying to make other people recognize something of themselves rather than me.”

Cindy Sherman’s work is the epitome of exploring selves. She dresses up as a plethora of characters that reflect things that many people may find within themselves. Many images elicit very strong experiences of recognition, with viewers having strong sensory responses.

I really enjoy how Sherman plays with beauty, often showing older women looking grotesque with exaggerated makeup. She shows the reality of humans, albeit in a very exaggerated way. However, as many people recognize aspects of others in her work, it must mean that she’s representing something of a reality.

Ultimately, it’s very cool to see all her explorations of how she can distort herself to take on characteristics and tropes that can be seen universally by her audience.

Ana Mendieta

Mendieta’s piece where she takes her student’s facial hair and applies it to her own face made me feel disgust, I must say. I found it incredibly unsettling for some reason. I think it must be due to the fact that society programs us to see any kind of hair (other than eyebrows and the kind on our head) as unseemly on a woman, and so seeing her willingly apply hair to her face gave me such a visceral reaction.

Overall, I think it’s interesting that she’s playing with gender roles and beauty in this way. It shows us how easy the self can be changed, or how we can take pieces of other people’s selves and make them into our own.