bewareDictators [2022]
Materials: Acid-free paper, lenticular ink-jet prints, UV-filtering plexiglas, UV-protected matte medium, birch plywood
Dimensions: 26.75″W × 28.375″H × 2″D
As autocrats around the globe keep tightening their grubby little hands around power—and their even grubbier little hands around other people’s money—it feels only polite to introduce them all publicly in one convenient lineup. Think of it as a group photo of fascist facial familiarities… like a yearbook ..if the yearbook was haunted.
bewareDictators_01 lovingly (and by “lovingly,” I mean “deeply uncomfortably”) presents an unsettling spread of identifiably autocratic quirks and tyrant face-features.
After spending countless hours locked in a Photoshop stare-down, face-to-face with endless headshots of these sinister pukes, I can confirm something truly chilling: their faces share weirdly consistent expressions. Apparently, when evil lives inside, it sends a little RSVP through the eyes.
N.B.For this particular installment, the cast list is curated with a special spotlight on modern-day notorious demagogues from outside U.S. borders—because, well, international villains deserve representation too.
N.B. (Re: the softness of the images):Photographing lenticular imagery is basically like trying to take a crisp photo of a hologram while riding a roller coaster. Expect unavoidable fuzziness, optical interference, and that special Moiré banding effect that makes your camera go, “Absolutely not.”
A few examples from series of associated assemblies: “faustianBargaineers_###”:
And some snapshots of the production progress:
