Have you ever heard the saying that no one ever looks as good as their Facebook profile picture nor as bad as their driver’s license photo? For those of us nervous that maybe we really do look like that, Oscar Muñoz explores the disconnect between photographs, memory, and reality in his 2007 piece “The Game of Probabilities” currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art.

The twelve part piece displays fragments of six different identity photographs of Muñoz, including driver’s licenses and passports, reconstructed into new images of the artist. Each new photo is shown held between Muñoz’s fingertips, which provides an idea of the scale of these projects. And although the photos used to create this project were from important, federally issued documents, Muñoz shows how insignificant that part of our identity is. That is, people do not define themselves by their social security number, but others may define us in a camera flash—no retakes.

Muñoz’s fingertips draw us to another conclusion: we control our identity. As much as others may define us, we ultimately choose how we portray ourselves and what our true self is. The idea that one holds his or her own individuality literally in the palm of their hand is an empowering thought. It is somewhat at odds with today’s culture, for in the world of Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook, it is possible to judge and be judged based upon superficial qualities without realizing that one is more than a photo or a status update. However, in the same way, through social media we now have incredible control over what aspects of our lives others can see.

The original documents used for this piece were taken with a variety of filters and are of varying qualities. Full color and black and white photographs, taken in rooms with lighting ranging from dingy to harsh fluorescent, are intermingled. The lighting difference from photo to photo draws attention to different features in each portrait. In one, the right side of Muñoz’s face is heavily gray-scale which stands out amid the otherwise fleshy tones.

We see, too, Muñoz’s physical transformation over time. However, the fact that each portrait is a collage of approximately thirty years of Oscar Muñoz demonstrates the variability of personal identity especially as time passes. It speaks to the truth that at any particular moment one is a conglomerate of past identities. Muñoz expresses an essential conflict of identity—how we portray ourselves versus our true self.

This exhibition also draws a line between the taken image and memory. For while photographs capture a moment, encapsulate it and allow us to return to a specific memory, memory involves much more than visual surroundings. Additionally, a photograph of oneself can skew the memory perspective to being from a view other than one’s own. An image may redefine a memory as can be seen by the exhibit as a whole: Muñoz redefines six specific photos into twelve portraits.

These portraits all, technically speaking, depict the same man—Oscar Muñoz. Yet it is Muñoz over a span of thirty years, his values, beliefs, and sense of self developing. 48 year old Oscar would likely be nearly unrecognizable to himself at 18. From a distance, the twelve images, separately framed, carefully placed in a 3×4 grid on a stark white wall, come into clearer focus. Each is a recognizable face and they have marked similarities. However the variable haircuts, expression, and distance between the eyes depicts twelve men who seem more like cousins than the same man.

The title of this exhibit—“The Game of Probabilities”—presents another interesting idea. Identity may be likened to a game in that there is a struggle, a competition, between true self and perceived self. Our identities are constantly developing and at some times we may feel more true to our selves: when we are with our closest friends and families, for example. A quantitative and statistical approach to individual identity, as is taken by the government and manifested through federal and state ID’s, reflects the question of how closely related we are to who others perceive us to be.

Muñoz’s craftsmanship is exquisite. Each photograph of the reconstructed ID is taken in the same light, from the same angle; the piece is cohesive. As well, the photos are painstakingly restructured to create lifelike human faces. The nose may be taken from an entirely different photo than the left eye, but the portrait still reads in a sensible manner.

This exhibit is truly a must-see for MoMA goers, those interested in photography, and those intrigued by identity during a time and place where our lives are better documented than at any other. It is an exhibit that makes one stop and think—step closer to examine each portrait and then step back to take in the whole. Muñoz may call our identities into question, but he also defines our ever-evolving sense of self.