A huge factor of Daft Punk’s image is those futuristic masks, which has been a trademarked facet of their image for decades. While pictures of the duo unmasked have leaked in the past, this shows Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo in a whole new light.
The statue was created using birchwood and 3D scanning for a new Music exhibit at Galerie Perrotin in New York. The creator, Xavier Veilhan, explained his decision to portray them unmasked:
“The funny thing is I didn’t even ask them,” Veilhan tells me via phone call while installing Music, a double exhibition opening this week at Galerie Perrotin’s New York and Paris locations. “It was a very logical response to my proposal: I proposed to introduce them as producers, not as musicians, and so after talking to them, we decided that they should appear with their civilian names. […] They proposed to me: ‘Okay, we should make the sculpture the non-existing image of us. So if somebody wants to see how we are like in real [life] they’ll have to look at the sculpture.”
The exhibit also features Radiohead’s Nigel Godrich, Giorgio Moroder, Pharrell Williams, Rick Rubin, and Lee “Scratch” Perry, and just opened yesterday.