Geometries of the soul: faces, bodies, portraits
Portraits, both individual and group, constitute a significant portion of the images in The Archives of the Planet. In this genre, photographers were encouraged to move beyond the neutral depiction of physical types and attempt to capture a social and, simultaneously, psychological reality. They carefully selected the expressions of the person or group, their attitudes, the subtle movements of their bodies, their gazes. This is evident in numerous portraits of dancers, actors, merchants, soldiers—mostly anonymous individuals who posed for the photographers in locations ranging from Algeria to Seville, from Montenegro to Luxor, Beijing, Paris, and beyond. By adopting this perspective, the emergence of a melancholic element in Kahn's mission is also inevitable. These faces, these bodies, alone or in groups, with their unique and irreplaceable character, appeared for a fleeting moment before the camera lens only to vanish again in the swirling current of history.
