(EF)FACE – Hidden
Features – Bruno Baltzer & Leonora Bisagno

Bruno Baltzer (born in France) and Leonora Bisagno (born in Italy) are an artist duo based between Luxembourg and Italy. For over fifteen years, they have developed a collaborative practice combining photography, sculpture, and installation, with a particular interest in urban environments and the circulation of contemporary images. Their work explores how images travel, transform, and shape a shared visual culture in a globalised world.

This series focuses on the figure of Mao Zedong, whose face has become one of the most reproduced political images of the twentieth century. Widely disseminated through Chinese propaganda and later reinterpreted by Western artists such as Andy Warhol, Mao’s portrait has gradually shifted from a political symbol to a global visual icon. Here, the artists question how such images continue to convey authority and meaning today.

During a residency in Beijing in 2016, Baltzer and Bisagno photographed Mao’s portrait through the digital screens of tourists gathered in front of the monumental image in Tiananmen Square. By using repetition, variations in colour, and layered framing, they create a distance between the viewer and the subject. The work highlights how images are constantly mediated, reproduced, and consumed, becoming part of a collective visual memory.

Alongside the large-scale works, a small monochrome photograph presents an analogue transcription of a single pixel taken from Mao’s skin. Reduced to this minimal fragment, the image approaches abstraction and questions the limits of representation. Together, the works invite viewers to reflect on how iconic images are constructed, circulated, and transformed over time.