Sans Titre (Monsieur Bertillon) No 15 © Stéphanie Solinas
FOAM - Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam Keizersgracht 609 1017 DS Amsterdam Pays-Bas
In Sans Titre (Monsieur Bertillon), Stéphanie Solinas (France, 1978) investigates the identification system invented by Alphonse Bertillon in the 1880's.
Bertillon (Paris, 1853 - 1914) was a French police officer who developed "judicial anthropometry", based on physical measurements and photography. Anthropometrics was the first scientific system to be used by police to identify criminals (previously, the only way was to use unreliable eye witness accounts).
Bertillon's method was eventually eclipsed by fingerprinting, but his contributions, such as the mug shot and the system of photographing the crime scene, remain in use today. His system has been progressively extended to all individuals; for Solinas, our face is a surface where Bertillon's inquisitive presence still remains.
The exhibition compiles the various facets of Solinas's study in a photographic installation : photographs, voices, a handmade Bertillon paper-mask, the book in which the individual components of Bertillon's face are included, and an instructional video that shows how to make a three-dimensional mask from the book.
Vignette : Sans Titre (Monsieur Bertillon) No 15 © Stéphanie Solinas