Martin. Constant. 53 ans, né le 5/4/39 à Santrevaux (Basses-Alpes). Crémier. Anarchiste. 27/4/92. 1892

Editor: So here we have a gelatin-silver print from 1892 titled "Martin. Constant. 53 ans…" by Alphonse Bertillon. It's a rather formal portrait of a man, but something about the starkness of the image feels almost unsettling. What jumps out at you when you look at this photograph? Curator: Oh, the ghost of the bureaucrat hovers, doesn't it? Bertillon, you know, father of the mugshot. This isn't art in the high-flown sense, is it? But then, is art always a bouquet of lilies? This is something else. An attempt at pinning down identity – a man's name, his age, his trade, his political leanings etched onto him as much as his wrinkles. Creamer, anarchist... It’s all rather matter of fact, almost as if he's being cataloged as much as he's being seen. Makes you wonder what his cream was like. Did it froth with revolution? Editor: A cream revolution, that’s an image! But back to Bertillon. Was he really trying to be artistic here, or was this purely scientific? Curator: Artistic intent? A slippery thing, isn't it? He thought he was building a science, a way to capture the truth, but every selection, every pose, is a choice that carries its own poetry. See how the light catches his bowtie? Or doesn't? He’s being held up for us to measure. To judge. It’s humanity pressed between the pages of order, and of course, ultimately escaping it, just out of reach. Editor: So, we're left pondering Martin Constant, the anarchist cream vendor, caught between science and art? It’s strange to feel so curious about someone documented so clinically. Curator: Isn’t it though? A photograph purporting fact that blossoms instead into a field of questions. Wonderful stuff!