"The mirror is a civil war," writes graphic designer Jessica Helfand (Design: The Invention of Desire) in the introduction to Face: A Visual Odyssey. Her ambitious history of facial representation delves into often conflicting aspects of recording, measuring, airbrushing, categorizing and otherwise judging faces. Considering tintype photography, digital selfies, mug shots, celebrity photoshoots, Polaroids and more, Helfand examines why and how humans capture their own faces and others', and the ways those images are used: analyzed, judged, manipulated, glorified.
The chapters in Face, arranged in alphabetical order, cover a broad swath of (sometimes unexpected) topics related to the human countenance and its representations. These range from the meanings people draw from faces and features (Identity, Heredity, Narcissism) to various creative tools and artistic media (Masks + Mirrors, Caricature + Close-Ups) to the sometimes problematic, even diabolical, uses of facial images (Eugenics, Quackery, Othering). Helfand draws on photo archives, paintings, newspaper cartoons, passport photos, medical studies and other materials from many different eras and countries. Her incisive essays accompanying the illustrations turn a critical eye to trends, biases, prejudice and other aspects of how human beings see, decorate, preserve and sometimes modify images of faces. Helfand's visual odyssey nudges readers to look and look again at the faces of world leaders, immigrants, popular figures--even at the face they see in the mirror--to discern what they might reveal. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams