26/07/2026
In Shanghai, Chen was working on a building site and during his lunch break he was playing the flute to unwind a little before resuming work. I sat in front of him and blissfully listened while he was playing. He didn't mind my presence, merely smiling to me and making me understand that I could stay and listen on. Once he had finished playing his piece I asked him if I could make his portrait. He kindly agreed and then I went to the Modern Art Museum nearby. And here is the preface one could read on the wall introducing a photography exhibition devoted to faces :
" The face is the uncovered part of the body, except for special occasions - depending on traditions, cultures, customs, habits - and, from time to time, forced requirements. It is, generally, never covered. The face shapes and defines the singular identity of the individual, to the point that it represents the primordial source of social identification; it represents society, the social sphere, the community, the acts of living with each other, the visible essence of humanity; it is a whole that attributes distinctive and unequivocal features to human figures. These figures come into being in the world more precisely through the face, where everything is revealed, including joy, suffering, aversion, magnanimity, truth and falsehood, light and darkness. The face is the immediate point of contact among humans, an encounter that we desperately pursue; it is what must be visible, otherwise it would mean concealing the world from human sight, hiding everything, making it disappear and fade into indistinctness, until it vanishes completely. Individuals look for themselves, pointing their face at others', mirroring themselves, looking everywhere for similar reflections and corresponding images among the others. The face, writes Giorgio Agamben, consists of "both the similitas - similarity - and the simultas - coming together of individuals. A man without a face is undoubtedly alone."
