Facebook is the most recent work that Guest created for the exhibition EDIT: Image Fetish and Phobia in September, 2012. The primary materials are a great number of Chinese and foreign magazines whose covers are close-up portraits that have been collected by the artist-trio. The magazines are rolled up and the covers are covered by triangle-shaped black fabric. They are grouped and scattered on the floor and at overhead corners of the exhibition space, invoking associations and questions from the viewers.
However, the “masked men” could be regarded as a rethinking of a multiplex of infinitely zoomed-in media images that are symptomatic of the contemporary consumerist society. As the title directly references to the social network Facebook, the “portrait sensation” becomes the primary means to get to know a star, a hero or a public personality in the contemporary society. But the artists whittle down the “portrait sensation” by creating “masked men”, which conveys a different feeling - mysterious, frightening and cryptic.
Detail pictures:
Facebook
Instagram
WeChat 微信