Facebook: Check out the social media giant’s Gurgaon office makeover

Facebook India HQ | Artistic Makeover

If you happen to pay a quick visit to Facebook India's headquarters in Gurgaon, a larger-than-life, abstract mural by Mumbai-based artist Aniruddh Mehta will make you stop in your tracks and take notice. You will also be surprised to know that the mural is not for a museum or gallery. But then again, this should not come as a surprise, especially for those familiar with Facebook's history with contemporary artists. The social media giant's association with these artists began when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker (the first President of Facebook) traded painter David Choe's stock options for murals in 2005.

Choe's paintings of people and disembodied faces set the visual tone for Facebook's first offices on Emerson Street in Palo Alto, California. In the years that followed, a number of artists have similarly shaped the visual experience of the social media giant's Menlo Park campus, and its flagships around the world on walls, conference rooms and hallways, among others.

Aniruddh Mehta and his team add finishing touches to the mural at Facebook headquarters in Gurgaon

The finished mural at the Facebook HQ in Gurgaon by artist Aniruddh Mehta

Facebook Supports Art Initiatives

In 2012, Facebook made a formal commitment to creatives by setting up its artist residency programme—FB AIR. As part of the initiative, artists are invited to create site-specific artworks at Facebook's offices around the world. Back in Gurgaon, all it took for Aniruddh Mehta to say 'yes' to conceptualising a mural for the Facebook HQ was an email from the FB AIR team. "I said yes immediately and sent them a couple of directions and ideas of what I was thinking. Over the course of two weeks, we finalised something that we were happy with and planned the dates for me to work on the piece," says Mehta.

Making the Facebook office in Gurgaon his temporary workstation, Mehta and his team of two stencilled and hand-painted all five walls they were commissioned for. "It took us almost two weeks to complete the entire piece, but it was worth it."

The mural is a combination of traditional pattern work juxtaposed with a bold, futurist digital optical art aesthetic

Taxi Fabric to Office Murals

Mehta's work often explores the relationship of repeated patterns and line work along with the balance of black and white. His breakout monochrome and minimalist makeover of a Mumbai auto rickshaw, as part of Taxi Fabric's initiative to transform the interiors of India's iconic kaali-peelis and autos, garnered him a fair amount of attention.

"The mural I did for the FB AIR programme has a similar intent. It is a combination of traditional pattern work juxtaposed with a bold, futurist digital op-art (optical art) aesthetic. All patterns are harmoniously bound together in a camouflage-like composition. We chose to hand-paint the mural instead of vinyl-stickering so that from a close distance you can spot certain inconsistencies and human-errors, which I think adds a nicer finish to the overall piece," adds Mehta.

A blank canvas and the freedom to do whatever he wanted gave Mehta the license to create something truly fascinating — and trippy — if you look at it up close. Unfortunately there's no Facebook 'Like' button in real life, or we would have bet this mural art would have gone viral, offline!

ALSO READ: