How to Build, Rebuild or Destruct Identity Through Face Masks in Visual Culture

Abstract

In this chapter, we embrace the paradox that surfaces in visual culture, between the hidden and the unveiling, focusing on the presence of face masks in the art field and in a pandemic context. Its generalised use had repercussions on the feeling of conditioned identity, but contemporary art was one way of approaching personal and collective identity, recontextualising masks, even in current affairs such as COVID-19. We first approached ancient traditions and folklore, and then the mystery and uncanny in fine arts, the contemporary urban artists, the place of self and other in the world, and personal positions on collective issues. Some artworks became a synonym or a reflection of how people see themselves and society nowadays. Prohibition and liberty are a constant pair when it comes to masking. Finally, the methodology involved the analysis of artworks by different artists whose work included the combo face/mask, from René Magritte’s surrealism, through Hayati Evren’s contemporary mashups, to Banksy’s activism. Within an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, this research crosses disciplines such as semiotics, philosophy, sociology, communication sciences and visual culture studies, questioning the complexity of the relations between art and society and the symbolic role of the mask in this experience.