Visual Mask Metaphors in Jean Genet and Maurizio Cattelan

At first glance, nothing seems to relate Jean Genet's play "Les Nègres" ("The Blacks") to Maurizio Cattelan's exhibit "Not Afraid of Love." The two works belong to separate conceptual mediums, yet they share the dynamics and effects of the mask-function, concealing the individual donning the mask while revealing a compound identity, experienced by all spectators. Vestiges of sacred rituals, masks are used here as profane icons, strangely animating inanimate artifacts, thereby generating a sense of wonder and unease. While metaphors require neither visibility nor animation, the interaction between exhibit/actors and spectator/s conjures up an almost tangible metaphor. Not all metaphors are masks, but all masks are powerful visual metaphors, whose impact alters not only those who don them but also those who participate in their display. In both media, the effect of the mask on the spectator/s is one of transformation from subject to object, by means of the gaze, inadvertently a simultaneous, two-sided activity.