Piotr Uklanski’s series of images, ‘The Nazis’ (a
Alexander Kennedy is touched, terrified and tormented by a major new study of the face in contemporary photography.
bove) shows Hollywood’s enduring fascination
John Stezaker uses mirroring to make angels (‘Angels 2’,
above), demons (‘Demon’, right) from found photographs of children
face is a mask. is a lie. The face acts as
a permeable membrane. a negotiated
zone between the subject and the object. outside and in. In William A liwing‘s book Face: The New Photographic Portrait. we are presented with evidence of this postmodern claim. where everything is artilice. even how we construct and construe the ‘sell". This anthology of selves shows that not only is our subjectivity continually evolving. but the face as our anchor in the social world is also on the move. slipping from the beautil‘ul to the
FACES
ugly. or mostly hovering like a phantom between the two.
The most extreme work by some of the most respected contemporary photographers grimace and peer out of the pages. Barbara Kruger's cold. black and white head shots are branded with Big Brother-style ambivalent statements such as 'Your body is a battleground’. while (‘indy Sherman’s augmented sell-portraits pose and preen like freshly spray-tanned bul'l’oons. waiting for their close-ups. The power of both Kruger and
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