Face masks have become an unlikely canvas, a new piece of fashion real estate, on which to wear designs that express your identity, to match your outfit or to make a statement. To cement its status as a fashion accessory, and encourage contemporary expression, nine artists have jumped on the bandwagon with a series of limited-production masks.
Think Virgil Abloh, Mark Grotjahn, Alex Israel, Barbara Kruger, Yoko Ono, Catherine Opie, Pipilotti Rist, Hank Willis Thomas, and Andy Warhol (thanks to The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts).
https://www.thepeakmagazine.com.sg/lifestyle/exclusive-face-masks-designs-famous-artists/
MOCA face masks
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Hank Willis Thomas
Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976, Plainfield, New Jersey) is a conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media and popular culture. Through photographs, sculpture, video and collaborative public art projects, he invites viewers to consider the role of popular culture in instituting discrimination and how art can raise critical awareness in the ongoing struggle for social justice and civil rights.
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Pipilotti Rist
Pipilotti Rist (b. 1962, Rheintal, Switzerland) is a multimedia artist. She is a pioneering video artist, she developed an aesthetic that takes its cues from television, advertising and feminist video work. From her earliest tapes through her recent multi-media installations, Rist’s body of work explores the intersection of sexuality, technology and pop culture.
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Catherine Opie
Catherine Opie (b. 1961, Sandusky, Ohio) is one of the preeminent artists of her generation working with photography. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including The Guggenheim Fellowship, The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art Medal and a United States Artists Fellowship. She is the Lynda and Stewart Resnick endowed Chair in Art and Professor of Photography at UCLA.
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Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger (b. 1945, Newark, New Jersey) is an artist who works with pictures and words in the hopes of revealing and resisting socially ingrained assumptions about power – how it determines who lives and who dies, who is healed and who is housed, who speaks and who is silenced, who is visible and who is marginalised.
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Mark Grotjahn
Mark Grotjahn (b. 1968, Pasadena, California) combines gesture and geometry with abstraction and figuration in visually dynamic paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. Each of his series reflects a range of art-historical influences and unfolds in almost obsessive permutations.
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Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono (b. 1933, Tokyo, Japan) is a multi-media artist working in performance, instruction, film, installation, sculpture, music, and writing. A forerunner in conceptual art involving collaboration, audience participation, and social activism since the early 1960s, Ono challenges viewers’ understanding of art and the world around them.
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Andy Warhol
As the preeminent American artist of the 20th century, Andy Warhol challenged the world to see art differently. Since its founding in 1987, in accordance with Warhol’s will, The Andy Warhol Foundation has established itself among the leading funders of contemporary art in the United States.
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Alex Israel
Alex Israel (b. 1982, Los Angeles, California). For the last decade, Israel’s art has embraced pop-culture as a global language. Israel’s art practice doubles as a brand, centred around a Southern Californian millennial lifestyle for which his iconic profile-in-shades-logo becomes a sly emblem, mobilised across high-visibility platforms from the worlds of art, entertainment, fashion and tech.
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Virgil Abloh
Virgil Abloh (b. 1980, Rockford, Illinois) is an artist, architect, engineer, creative director, and fashion designer. Currently, he is the chief creative director and founder of Off-White and the artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton.
The result of a partnership between The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles and Hong Kong-based K11 Group, the MOCA masks are being showcased at the Gold Ball on the second floor of K11 MUSEA in Hong Kong. Adrian Cheng, founder of K11 Group and CEO of New World Development, spearheaded the partnership and made it possible for the masks to be available in the Asia-Pacific.
This is MOCA’s first mask project and reflects the museum’s commitment to making the experience of art accessible. Made in Los Angeles, these masks are available in the Asia-Pacific via the exclusive K11 x MOCA partnership. They are available for pre-order from Aug 7.
(Related: K11 Musea rises as art powerhouse in Hong Kong)
Alex Israel’s exclusive creation features a sunset palette design, with a specially designed artist portrait pin. The other creations span a colourful floral design by Warhol (this echoes the same artwork which is in MOCA’s permanent collection), Ono’s puzzle design, and Grotjahn’s geometric style pattern. Typography centred-designs are also featured.
All masks are crafted in Los Angeles and vary in fabric depending on the design, including 100% cotton, cotton blends (98% cotton, 2% elastane), or 100% polyester micro-fibre. They are made with two fabric layers, with a pocket on the inside with sides for the option of filter insertion.
(Related: Comme des Garcons works with graffiti artist Futura to release a line of striking shirts)