We see faces on an everyday basis — while looking in the mirror, when we meet other people at home or in our workplace, and whilst reading newspapers or watching TV. Every single face is unique. It is therefore not surprising that they have long been the area of interest of visual artists. They also became an inspiration for the latest temporary exhibition entitled ‘Face to Face’ presented in the Four Domes Pavilion Museum of Contemporary Art, which is a branch of the National Museum in Wrocław.
‘Face to face’ means being close to someone. Such a meaningful title serves as a starting point for discussing how we treat and perceive images of people. Iwona Dorota Bigos, one of the exhibition curators, said: ‘A face, which is the most important part of a human body, became the key motif for me. I started thinking about what happens with our faces these days, when we allow artificial intelligence to use them without any reservations on our part.’ Małgorzata Micuła, the second curator, added: ‘One of the questions we ask is about our relationship with our own face and how we treat faces of other people or other beings in general, who nowadays are not necessarily living organisms or life forms existing in reality. More complex context is present today, namely the creatures created by artificial intelligence and faces generated by computers. It is interesting how we can come face to face with these.
The exhibition is an international event. Works by over 20 artists are presented there, some of which, e.g. the photographs from the ‘Smash’ series by Weronika Gęsicka, were purchased by the National Museum in Wrocław specifically for this occasion. ‘Face to face’ also features pieces from the museum’s collection. Some of them are not ordinarily presented to the public, for instance due to ongoing restoration works. Visitors will also have the opportunity to see artworks borrowed from other institutions and acquired from private collections or galleries, for example the pieces by Gillian Wearing, who is represented by the Maureen Paley gallery in London.
Paintings and photographs
The exhibition takes us on a journey through the history of recording images of human faces. The first work showcased is ‘Narcissus’, a masterpiece by the prominent Italian Mannerist painter Jacopo Tintoretto. The title refers to self-recognition and one’s interest in their own image. This piece comes from the times when faces painted by artists were usually those of real people. The painting is typically displayed in the main museum building as a part of the old art collection, however for the meantime it has been transferred to the modern exhibition space of the Four Domes Pavilion and is presented next to e.g. ‘Self-portrait,’ a conceptual photograph by Stanisław Markowski from the year 1976, which is regarded as an iconic piece for the photographic medium of that time. According to Małgorzata Micuła: ‘Conceptual artists were extremely keen on photography because in those years it rose through the ranks and became a separate field of art. It was no longer only a functional medium, but became a medium with specific artistic qualities attached. It also gave a lot of room for experiments or manipulation of images. This is exactly what Stanisław Markowski did. He created a photomontage which makes us think that he tore his own body in two pieces.’
Further into the exhibition the visitors will have a chance to appreciate a collection of daguerreotypes — artworks made with the use of an early photographic process which played an important role in the history of photography. In the 19th century these images satisfied the need for more accurate and realistic depiction of the surrounding reality. As Małgorzata Micuła emphasised: ‘We decided to present these old photography techniques and they really enrich our exhibition. We do not usually present daguerreotypes from our collection to the public, so this is one of the few opportunities to see what they look like nearly 200 years after being taken.’
Photography may be perceived as an egalitarian medium, but over the years pictures were taken mostly of the prominent people with a higher social status or a significant position in the society. In contrast, Nikodem Nowakowski visited a mortuary to capture images of deceased homeless men and women. Guided by the common stereotypes one could say that such people ‘do not deserve’ to have their appearance recorded in a photograph. Małgorzata Micuła remarked that: ‘This work is a very important one because it has a lot to do with death masks. It also emphasises the way we think about photography, namely that we only take photos of photogenic images and objects, of things and people we like and are interested in, in general of everything that is attractive and aesthetically pleasing. Nikodem Nowakowski shows us that photography can serve a totally different purpose and attracts our attention to how socially significant it actually is.’
Some of the artists whose works are presented at the exhibition also prepared written content for the catalogue. In her article Dorota Walentynowicz debunks a myth of the egalitarian character of photography, backing this argument up with the strategy adopted by Kodak. Until the mid-1990s, the company produced photographic plates that made only white people look good in the pictures. This approach has changed later on but, surprisingly, not as a result of the protests of black people, but rather due to the influence of the furniture producers and chocolate manufacturers.
Conceived in a dialogue between Maurizio Cattelan and Chiara Parisi, director of Centre Pompidou-Metz and curator of the exhibition with Anne Horvath, Arcimboldo Face to Face offers an unprecedented journey, away from any chronology, into the meandering thought and timeless vocabulary of this mysterious sixteenth century painter.
Real faces, digital faces
When can we say that our face is real? Do we actually see our true image and do we want to show it to others? Gillian Wearing presents her own face in a mask, whereas Cindy Sherman acts when posing for pictures — in this way she embodies various stereotypes and schematic thinking. In both of the artists’ works faces are in fact masks that people tend to put on for a variety of reasons. When we see them in photographs, we are not able to decipher what the real person behind the cover is like.
Designing and creating our own image is a hot topic nowadays. We very often take selfies and carefully create our appearance in social media, going even as far as to making our own avatars. ‘In recent decades it has been clearly visible how the media have changed. Artists use digital technologies and have an opportunity to create artificial images. Therefore, we ask a question about peoples’ relationship with their own selves and with others. We want to think about what happens when we overuse technology and start publishing our photos unquestioningly,’ says Małgorzata Micuła. ‘It is also a question whether our own face still belongs to us,’ added Iwona Dorota Bigos.
Man-made technical advancements often use our faces and their shapes to enable unlocking mobile phones through the increasingly popular Face ID function or subject them to biometrics used for verification in various security systems. Therefore, a face is no longer just a carrier of a person’s identity, but also an identification tool, not only in our encounters with other people, but also when we interact with a variety of cutting-edge equipment. It may happen, however, that machines are inept at deciphering our identity, e.g. when asked to pinpoint the people from the LGBTQ+ community or the members of minorities. What is more, almost everywhere we go, we are surrounded by countless supervision systems, such as city surveillance and other security installations. Thus human faces have become devalued, as in the online reality we are exposed to a constant stream of images, and the photographs of humans are just a part of it.
In general, the exhibition not only shows the history of depicting human faces and the ways of such presentation, but, most importantly, it asks questions about our relationships, who we communicate with, whether we are able to verify human images that we see, and if we even have control over our own appearances. The final segment of ‘Face to face’ is crucial when we try to find answers to these issues, as it discusses artificial intelligence and algorithms.
‘Face to Face’
26 February – 4 June 2023
National Museum in Wrocław — The Four Domes Pavilion Museum of Contemporary Art
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‘Face to Face” exhibition, the Four Domes Pavilion Museum of Contemporary Art, courtesy of the National Museum in Wrocław, photograph by Magdalena Lorek -
Katarzyna Kozyra, Faces (Eri Nakumarua), 2005, property of the artist -
Katarzyna Szumska, from the series Portraits in Suspense, Brunelleschi, 2013-2022, property of the artist -
Natalia LL, Mask, 1990s, MNWr collection -
Waldemar Grażewicz, Untitled (cancelled), 2022, property of the artist -
‘Face to Face” exhibition, the Four Domes Pavilion Museum of Contemporary Art, courtesy of the National Museum in Wrocław, photograph by Magdalena Lorek
