Grugeau. Alfred, Alphonse. 26 ans, né à Tours (Indre & Loire). Cordonnier. Anarchiste. 9/3/94. 1894

This mugshot of Alfred Grugeau was taken in 1894 by Alphonse Bertillon, using photography and ink on card stock. The image is dominated by the subject's face and upper body, presented in a straightforward, almost clinical manner. The stark lighting and shallow depth of field render the subject with a clarity that is both revealing and unsettling. Bertillon’s employment of photography becomes a tool of social categorization and control. The subject's features, captured with such precision, are reduced to a set of measurable attributes, a sign system of the late nineteenth-century positivist drive to classify and understand the social body. The lines of the plaid shirt, the rigid posture and direct gaze challenge fixed notions of identity. This image presents a formal tension between documentation and interpretation. The photograph's objective appearance belies the subjective act of its creation, inviting us to question the power dynamics inherent in acts of looking and representation. The work remains a testament to the complex interplay of art, science, and social control.