Parisis. Charles. 20 ans, né à Aubervilliers (Seine). Tailleur d'habits. Outrages anarchistes. 10/7/93. 1893

Editor: This is a rather striking portrait by Alphonse Bertillon, taken in 1893. The full title is a mouthful: "Parisis, Charles, 20 ans, né à Aubervilliers (Seine). Tailleur d'habits. Outrages anarchistes. 10/7/93." which details the sitter's biography right on the label. It feels like such an impersonal presentation... almost clinical. What do you make of this? Curator: Impersonal is right, and I think that's exactly the point! Bertillon was obsessed with identification, turning people into data points. This isn't really a portrait, per se, more of a record. His gaze… direct, devoid of artifice – is arresting, don't you think? But he is also just a kid... caught in the cogs of bureaucracy. Editor: Absolutely. It's a far cry from, say, a romantic painting from that era! The subject's expression seems so blank, but also slightly defiant to me, like he’s not going to give them what they want. Curator: Precisely. This wasn't about capturing someone's essence. He sought a universal language of faces, a kind of visual fingerprinting. Did he succeed, I wonder, or does something of Charles slip through anyway, escaping the system's neat little boxes? He remains an individual. Even staring back at us, over the century! Editor: That makes me think about how we see mugshots today and our own assumptions of the people that are getting recorded. I'll definitely ponder over the ethics behind images, even archival ones like these. Curator: A pertinent point! We’re always adding layers of interpretation, projecting our contemporary sensibilities. History's not a fixed point; it’s a dialogue. Thank you, Charles!