Facial Recognition gathers a group of artists with unique approaches to portraiture, all working in a moment in history when AI and facial recognition algorithms are inescapable. Taken together, these artists–Pixy Liao, Helina Metaferia, Kambui Olujimi, Azita Moradkhani, Russell Craig, Lau Wai and LuYang–spark a conversation about a shift in depictions of the human face, given the ubiquity of this new technology that insinuates itself into our everyday lives.

 AFR–or Automatic Facial Recognition technology–is both invisible and intrusive; from iPhones to TSA, from convenience to surveillance, we take its benefits along with its dangers. Two artists–LuYang and Lau Wai–have mastered facial capture technology only to scrutinize its impact on our understanding of identity and existence. LuYang’s Delusional Mandala is a classic first-look at the way motion capture frees the artist to reinterpret immortality while Lau Wai’s most recent work, reflects their own state of blurred identity promoted by this conversation.

In contrast, several more artists intentionally create hand-made artworks to counteract the seductive qualities of AI and inscribe political messages. For example, AFR is used as a surveillance tool by authoritarian regimes and repressive systems. Azita Moradkhani underscores the way Iranian women are controlled by making visible their identities which are hidden under the ever-present black chador. Russell Craig, who learned to paint in prison, enacts resistance to this constant state of surveillance with his searing portrait of a woman surrounded by guards.

Two other artists who deliberately incorporate emotions, memories, and histories into their portraits, can be seen as counteracting facial recognition systems’ higher margin of error in identifying people of color. Helina Metaferia uses handmade collage to create mesmerizing portraits of political activists, such as Nikole Hannah-Jones, by adding archival images to their elaborate headdresses.

Artist Kambui Olujimi draws parallels in his watercolor paintings, between the digital consumption of the individual and the endurance contests of Depression Era dance marathons. His two porcelain sculptures explore trickster and shapeshifter figures as disruptions to the colonial imagination. Olujimi’s sculptures were featured in the 15th edition of the Sharjah Biennial in 2023.

The artist Pixy Liao photographs herself and her spouse, Moro, in ways that merge, disguise, and playfully subvert traditional wedding portraits. By departing from conventional representations, Liao’s work challenges gender roles, deconstructs binaries, and interrogates cultural traditions and societal expectations surrounding portraiture.

Facial Recognition represents a new generation of portraits by artists who create a frisson in the seemingly seamless adoption of AFR in contemporary art circles and elsewhere. While political activists attempt to resist cooperation with facial recognition applications through masks, camouflage and face painting, here we have a group of artists who have ideas of their own about how to subvert the power of this tool.

– Written by Barbara Pollack