James B. Ayer 1869

Curator: This double portrait captures James B. Ayer through gelatin-silver print photography, circa 1869. What do you make of this pairing? Editor: My immediate impression is of two different facets of a single personality—the left evokes a more academic, perhaps even fragile air, while the right projects a confident, established presence. Curator: Exactly, it’s a tale of class and societal expectations rendered visible. The photographic medium itself was becoming increasingly accessible at this time. Photography offered a means of representing and solidifying identity for a burgeoning middle class seeking social mobility. The photographic album was the social media of the 19th century! Editor: Note the differences in attire—one casual in his armchair, the other staged in the tight-fitting suit and the way that facial hair, and the addition of glasses transforms the figure entirely, hinting at shifting symbolic languages surrounding masculinity and status. What visual rhetoric can you identify that emphasizes prestige and position? Curator: Precisely, the chair serves as more than mere furniture, conveying social standing. But what about the very idea of documentation itself? It gives a sense of permanence and asserts a kind of agency to write oneself into history through the archive of the photograph, wouldn’t you say? Editor: I’d agree completely. We're reminded of the weight these images once held and perhaps can speculate as to the meaning attributed by Ayer himself to his different self-representations. Even now, it's impossible not to ponder how one wishes to be seen, how we self-fashion. Curator: Indeed. It makes you consider the performance of identity in portraiture, even the very real possibility of carefully-curated representations we enact across different social contexts. The double image prompts these complex narratives around aspiration, conformity and resistance. Editor: A truly illuminating photographic diptych that is not only a visual artifact of its era but still encourages profound thinking on identity construction even today.