What makes history's most famous and infamous men?

Artslant.com, 7. March 2009

Even the most unimaginative poster vandal knows that scrawling a small black square under someone's nose transforms even super-models and bunny rabbits into an evocation of Hitler. But it takes a long moment to register the identity of the earnest clean-shaven fellow with "Adolf" written clearly under Roman Tolici's portrait of him.

"Adolf" is one of the 40 icons presented in Tolici's "Barber Shop" (2008) series of small black & white watercolour portraits. The Samson-like effect that erasing history's most infamous moustache has on the power of a Hilter portrait is not the most amazing aspect of the show. What is remarkable is how thought-provoking it is to view the Romanian artist's entire series of feared and admired male cultural icons of the 19th and 20th centuries, all without facial hair.

"Barber Shop" hangs salon style throughout Collectiva Gallery's main room and outshines "Action" (2008-09), Tolici's series of larger oil paintings intended to demonstrate problems presented in illustrating physical states of flux. Without "Action's" conceptual strain and pictorial complexity, "Barber Shop" raises questions about history and personal integrity with levity and wit, but also unexpected depth.

The emergence of wild-man beards on today's hipsters marks the return of facial hair for fashionable youths, while facial hair is no longer the norm for distinguished mature men. Through that lens, does seeing Che Guevara and Fidel Castro fresh-faced lower their credibility as tough and commanding revolutionary figures? And while George Orwell's moustache hardly had as much political portent as Castro's commanding beard, why does seeing him without it somehow render his face meek, boyish and less knowing and authoritative? And while all of those figures were significant men, not just manly hair-dos, Tolici's show makes us wonder how mature masculinity should look to us today.

Ana Finel Honigman