‘MultiFACEted’

A proposal for an exhibition and extravaganza of the Face

by Chris Mercier

The day we became self-conscious enough to warrant the word ‘art’, to describe our

creative activities, the ‘face’ has certainly been an essential component of an artist’s

language in its inclusion or exclusion. There is no escape from the face in even the

most abstract and conceptual artists’ practices. There are incongruities in the

incorporation of the face in a traditional figurative practice.

The face as an entity can be transcended but not without its attainment first. This

seems to be a recurring theme in texts of a philosophic nature and of art theorists.

The face is; truth, deception, politics, language, sexuality, our nakedness, our one

true externalised component that offers access or denies access to our interiority.

An exhibition that could show how artists come to terms with the face and all its

facets is attempted here, in a virtual show with the working title, ‘MultiFACEted’.

The one piece in this show that I have chosen, that acts as the beginning and end,

the only remedial work that will curtail this facial purgatory that harangues artists

and art theorists alike is: ‘Face Eater’ by Dana Schutz.(2004) Oil on canvas.

Before the Face Eater is let loose, I will list the supporting works by different artists

in this ‘MultiFACEted’ exhibition. They will I hope be considered, as being

members of the cast in this spectacle of ‘faciality’, before they are finally consumed

by the Face Eater.

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Clara Serena Rubens {daughter of the artist} (1614) by Peter Paul Rubens.

Marilyn Monroe (1967) by Andy Warhol.

Mao Tse Tung (1972) by Andy Warhol

The Scream (1969) – A suite of 20 etchings by Ernst Neizvestny

Study for Skin 1.(1962) by Jasper Johns

Faceless portrait (1936) by Franz Ehrlich

Le Viol (1934) by Rene Magritte

Spokesperson (2004) by Richard Phillips

Bukkake (2004) by Richard Phillips

El Gran Paranoico, (1936) by Salvador Dali

Google, (2006) by Dana Schutz

The face is the origin of language, since humankind became self aware. As societies

have evolved, the face has become increasingly more intrinsic, a silent communicator,

a useful deceiver, sometimes an unwanted deliverer of our innermost thoughts. In a

face to face encounter, it’s even a catalyst for the reception of an endless flow of data

that another may want to impart or withhold. I think the face is even an entity unto

itself that we are unable to control in its totality, but we learn quickly to use it to our

advantage, but it is always open, always on standby it’s duality even multiplicity is

apparent. Maybe one day we will transcend the ligature to our face, a deliverance, a

new species of human, but we cannot or would not return to our lost innocence,

perhaps Lucifer delivered our facial awareness as he fell to earth. However, Deleuze &

Guattari, authors of A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia (1980) , trans

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Brian Masumi (1988), in their chapter on ‘faciality’, seem more focused on year zero.

Jesus Christ as the model, the Turin shroud is conjured up.

The ‘Face Eater’ a painting of moderate proportions, painted with brushes onto canvas

in a traditional and painterly way by the young American artist Dana Schutz. It has

fleshy tones with sanguineous overtones. It is cartoon like and humorous, yet depicts a

ghastly scene. A face is consuming itself, its own face! The mouth at this frozen

moment in time is busy consuming the eyes, nose and ears. Teeth, lots of them,

blooded tongue and bodily fluids seem to be hard at work devouring a diminishing

face, which is destined to disappear for ever, remaining perhaps but a faceless ‘probe-

head’ – a state beyond faciality (Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, op. cit., pp 190,191)

or an ‘Acephalec’ monster. (Acephale - Mythical creature without head and title of

journal/pamphlet published by Georges Bataille 1936/37)

It could be however that the Face eater will continue to consume every face in the

exhibition and then make its way across continents on a mission of global amplitude.

The painting has typical portrait proportions, the head and neck rest on shoulders that

are composed and sited where head and shoulders should be sited in a traditional

portrait. This replicates how artists have dealt with the face over the years, when

conventions override. Dana Schutz is making at least this statement here. Then she

harkens the call to modernity, yet understands that there is no escape for her, just yet,

from the figurative, and our faciality. Perhaps she has read Deleuze’s words on

defacialization – ‘Beyond the face lies an altogether different inhumanity: no longer

that of the primitive head but of “probe-heads”’ ( Gilles Deleuze et al., ibid., pp

190,191), she could have heard Bataille and his rallying call, item 9. ‘Take part in the

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destruction of the existing world, with eyes open to the world to come’ (1936 Program

{Relative to Acephale}), and maybe also Giorgio Agamben’s book Means without

End (1996 trans Vicenzo Binetti & Cesare Casarino , pp 92) which contains a chapter

on the Face, where he discusses our need to appropriate our own image, our face. I

am also reminded of yet another Dana Schutz painting entitled ‘Google’ (2006),

where she portrays herself searching ‘Google’ for images.

It is difficult for one image or work to encompass all the motives for originating and

staging an exhibition on the face and head. This is why I have listed in my

introduction, a supporting cast.

Rubens paints his ailing but beautiful eight year old daughter before her early demise.

He, like a Hollywood director today is the face-maker of his time, and this traditional

and personal portrait has an honesty that can be believed, because in this particular

work there is no ulterior motive, no appropriation of another’s identity only a paternal

need to preserve her fleeting image.

Andy Warhol on the other hand understands the power invested in a face in his

‘Marilyn’ and how this power is wielded in his ‘Mao Tse Tung’, these two modes in

which faces are used is discussed by Giorgio Agamben (1996) op cit., pp 97,98, The

eyes of Marilyn are focused on you, she is falsifying her engagement with you, her

display of pleasure, unavoidably erotic pulls you in, consensually you accept the

fraudulency. Mao on the other hand is inexpressive, but the weight of the background

implied is reassuringly severe, a paternal overseer. This is where Agamben also refers

to an interesting excerpt from the Star of Redemption by Franz Rosenzweig (1970),

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The use of the simulated and engaging gaze in the foreground and then the reversal of

facial priorities in the gaze of the tyrant. A six pointed star shape locates these nodes,

Two superimposed triangles, the first triangle representing the receptive organs,

forehead and cheeks, the second the eyes and mouth which bring to life and animate

the face. Strangely, and a bit out of context here, but the star shape also reminds me of

computerised facial recognition ‘algorithm nets’ that are used to identify facial types

in surveillance software.

Ernst Neizvestny’s suite of etchings record the faces of suffering, solicits the

compassion, delves into the realm of another and this artist’s parallel war time

experiences suggest a tenuous link to Emmanuel Levinas’ epiphany of the face

(Emmanuel Levinas The Trace of the Other 1963 trans A Lingus 1986 pp 351).

Salvador Dali, takes the face and the language of the face and makes it a landsacape in

El Gran Paranoico.

Study for Skin 1 by Jasper Johns, returns me to the year zero, the shroud. In ( Gilles

Deleuze et al., op. cit., p 170) ‘The face is a surface…the face is a map’, Jasper

Johns prints his oiled head on paper, by rolling it from ear to ear, when dry he dusts

the image with charcoal and we have ‘white wall/black hole, the abstract machine

producing faciality’( Gilles Deleuze et al., ibid., p 170) I read on and ‘Hand, breast,

stomach, penis and vagina, thigh, leg and foot, all come to be facialised’ and so Le

Viol (1934) by Rene Magritte is now hung on our exhibition wall. This rogues

gallery is never complete.

There is - I now realise - no end to the cast, to the rolling titles, this could outdo

Ben-Hur for its list of extras!

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I have though, after all chosen, the ‘Face Eater’, the destroyer, the dismantler of

faces, the one work that liberates us. A non-human future perhaps? for humankind,

for the artist, modernity?, maybe no longer will the artist need to operate avoidance

techniques to eliminate the face, like trying to remove Santa (who we no longer

believe in) from Christmas, it might happen one day !. How many paintings did

Pollock destroy because, a grimace a grin laughed at him though the random

markings before his eyes?

It is possible that this cannibalistic creature has been misunderstood. The ‘Face

Eater’ is only human after all and strives to possess his/her face, this is something

that only humans do, according to Agamben. Our appearance needs to be under our

control. On the other hand the animal kingdom has no need of the face, it carries

only a practical visage, no language and no politics.

We cannot see our own face we need to own it, reflect it, promote it, decorate it and

record it - even consume it.

Giorgio Agamben has many interesting observations to make on the face, he says

how ‘Nature acquires a face precisely in the moment it feels that it is being revealed

by language’ …(Giorgio Agamben, op. cit., p 91) he then adds..

The face does not coincide with the visage. There is a face wherever
something reaches the level of exposition and tries to grasp its own being
exposed….

This takes the artist or art itself to a new realm. With this in mind a purely abstract

or conceptual piece with no visage-apparent, could present itself with a face of its

own volition, perhaps with independence of the creator, at a later point in time!

Agamben however is less concerned with art and more concerned with how the State

and a ‘new class of bureaucrats’ is seeking to control our exposed condition. But his

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observations can explain how the self portrait, an exercise prevalent in western art

and that most artists have resorted to at one time or another, has come about.

The face is too vast a realm, too much to take in, endless avenues present themselves

in this unravelling of the face. Emmanuel Levinas The Trace of the Other

pp.351/352 speaks of a ‘surplus of meaning in the face’, which we cannot master.

The face is always naked , our one exposed zone, it’s very real, it’s ‘in your face’

real. This nakedness can be correlated to truth rather than honesty – a story to be told

and will be told, like it or not.

We choose, if we wish , sexual partners principally on their facial attributes. The

face as an erogenous zone, our lips our tongue the mouth are all exposed when we

speak. Our eyes, are the proverbial window to the soul. If we relax the face we relax

the body. ‘All nakedness has something of the face’. (Attributed to Levinas but I’m

not sure from where or when).

Some cultures past and present, Christian and Muslim veil the face, Islamic tradition

forbids the representation of the figure and face and Islamic fundamentalists have

taken the issue of the ‘hijab’ to the barricades. South American Indian cultures

prohibit the use of the camera if turned on themselves, as a superstitious measure, to

preserve their souls. To prevent the theft of their face.

When artists have produced representational work such as portraits there is always

something unexplainable if the portrait has ‘hit the spot’, more information or data

flows to the viewer than even the artist intended or is capable of actually depicting.

Whether this has more to say about the language of the face or the skill of the artist

remains to be discussed.

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The Face Eater, the key piece in this exhibition delivers an anarchic catastrophe or a

temporary transcendence; it could deliver a different way of organising our lives.

We could let it finish the deed already in progress. I think we will find that its face

once eaten, will re-appear elsewhere, an infinite cycle.

There is a duality in the face, discussed earlier, (Marilyn and Mao), or even a

multiplicity of visages. Agamben writes about grasping the ‘simultaneity’ in order to

grasp the truth of the face. (Giorgio Agamben, op. cit., p 98) So let MultiFACEted,

be the final title of this exhibition and not just the working title and like all good

films, shows, books and essays let it finish with a corny word of wisdom, courtesy

of Agamben.

Be only your face. Go to the threshold. Do not remain the subjects of your
properties or faculties, do not stay beneath them: rather, go with them, beyond
them. (Giorgio Agamben 1995, op. cit., p 99).

Enclosures 3

Photo of Face Eater by Dana Schutz.

Some of the works listed as supporting cast (1 printout & 1 photocopy)

Bibliography

Means without End by Giorgio Agamben 1996, trans Vicenzo & Cesare Casarino,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.

A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze & Felix

Guattari, (1980), trans Brian Masumi, London: The Athlone Press, 1988.

The Trace of the Other by Emmanuel Levinas (1963) in Mar C Taylor (ed),
Deconstruction in Context, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.

Program (Relative to Acephale) (1936) by G Bataille, Klossowsci, A. Masson, et al.

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