Los (muchos, cotidianos) rostros del Mal

Del proyecto Faces of Evil de Hans Weishäupl:

“The world is not threatened by evil people but by those who allow evil things to happen. - Albert Einstein

Here, Einstein’s quote gives us an important clue: Because society allowed them, sometimes even encouraged them, to do their ‘evil’. This suggests that a multitude of faces of active and passive accomplices stand behind the face of every dictator. Whilst everyone joins in to say Never again! after a reign of terror has ended, history shows that new tyrants can be allowed to rise to power again and again, in all parts of the world. This realization has inspired FACES OF EVIL.

Between November, 2007 and March, 2008, we took photographs of over 350 people in Hamburg, Munich, Vienna, Dresden, Frankfurt, Berlin, Amsterdam, Moscow, Belgrade, London, Barcelona, Paris and Milan. From them emerged the thirteen FACES OF EVIL, assembled from faces of people of the same ethnic origin as the according dictators. For example, the portrait of Hitler consists of 37 people. His nose belongs to an estate agent from Berlin, his upper lip to a locksmith in Dresden. His hair is put together from the hair of an artist in Weiden and a painter in Bamberg. The chin stems from a Hamburg restaurant owner, the eyes are those of a bank advisor in Frankfurt, the lachrymal sacks are from a precision mechanic in Bautzen, the throat is that of a Viennese banker, the beard belongs to a chef from Wuppertal… Every wrinkle, eyebrow and mole has been replicated true to the original so that it is possible to get a direct and close impression of every scar, nose hair, wide pore and other fine details."