Mask, Disguise and Role Play in Worldwide Contemporary Self-Portrait

This bachelor thesis deals with the role of mask, disguise and playing with the roles through self-portrait in worldwide contemporary photography. In the first chapters it follows the general development of the self-portrait and a brief history of photography and its forms and tendencies from beginning to the present, it is also focused on the mask in general and role of masks and disguises in the history of photography. Main part of this work is the last chapter, which is devoted to the youngest generation of contemporary photographers. In their self-portraits we can follow tendency which reveals use of mask and disguise for change of their identity. However, they do not create a new identity but takes over, or form the illusion of existing already defined identities. The aim of this thesis is to present the mask as an instrument for role play through a self-portrait