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Gillian Wearing,
Self-Portrait at Three Years Old,
2004.
Digital C-type print, 71 5/8 x 48 1/16 inches.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
Purchased with funds contributed by the International Director's Council and Executive Committee Members: Ruth Baum, Edythe Broad, Elaine Terner Cooper, Dimitris Daskalopoulos, Harry David, Gail May Engelberg, Shirley Fiterman, Nicki Harris, Dakis Joannou.
2004.125.
© Gillian Wearing.
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The mask occupies a central place in the videos and photographs of Gillian Wearing (b. 1963, Birmingham, England). Wearing has employed various kinds of masks—from literal disguises to voice dubbing—to conceal the physical identities of her subjects and allow them to reveal their innermost secrets. Often this has entailed surprising leaps in age: In one video, adult actors lip-synch the audio-recorded confessions of adolescents; in another, adults wearing plastic masks of generic children divulge traumatic experiences from their youths. For her Album series in 2003, Wearing adapted this strategy to a more autobiographical end. Donning silicon prosthetics, she meticulously reconstructed old family snapshots, transforming herself into her mother, father, uncle, and brother as young adults or adolescents. In one photograph in the series, Wearing recreated her own self-portrait as a teenager. Self-Portrait at Three Years Old (2004) carries this role-playing further back in time. Confronting the viewer with her adult gaze through the eyeholes of the toddler’s mask, Wearing plays on the rift between interior and exterior and raises a multitude of provocative questions about identity, memory, and the veracity of the photographic medium.
Ted Mann
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