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The problem here is with the literal use of a mask for identity, as in the case for The Guerilla Girls. With a mask, one is recognised through it and by it; so overpowering is its gesture, that one ultimately becomes the mask and is seen as nothing else; we can never glimpse beneath its veil. A tragic irony, one that recalls the allegory of The Gaze of Orpheus, the venerable Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, she forever veiled in the underworld, never to be gazed upon. Eurydice, so the tale goes, had fled the advances of Aristaues, stepped on a snake and died, banished to the underworld, Orpheus determined to have her back, gained entry to this world by his music under one condition:
"We grant the man his wife to go with him, bought by his song; yet let our law restrict the gift, that, while he Tartarus quits, he shall not turn his gaze."
Orpheus did not turn to look at her until nearly reaching the surface. In a moment, he cast a glance behind him. But Eurydice was still in darkness, veiled by the underworld, and she was instantly carried away. Eurydice was lost to Orpheus forever. As the French philosopher and literally theorist Maurice Blanchot presented in his interpretation of the myth in terms of its use as artistic creation: “for Orpheus, Eurydice is the limit of what art can attain; concealed behind a name and covered by a veil... she is the profoundly dark point towards which art, desire, death, and the night all seem to lead..”
By masking themselves literally the Guerilla Girl’s have avoided - albeit initially - creating an idealized image. To continue as they are they cannot be unmasked. They, like Eurydice, have to be covered forever...
