Tchikebe, Marseille
Frédéric Clavère, Claire Dantzer, Alix Delmas, Gethan&Myles, Olivier Millagou, Olivier Mosset, Nicolas Pincemin, Karine Rougier
The subject here is bodies. Through the production Valses Anthropométriques, Alix Delmas will draw on the Archives of the Paris Prefecture to question documents testifying to a method of body identification. This specific system, set up by Alphonse Bertillon – the famous French criminologist and creator of forensic anthropometry or the “Bertillon system” – was to revolutionize the French judicial and police system. It was adopted throughout Europe in 1879, then in the United States, and used in France until 1970.
A sort of ancestor of the criminal record, the main role of this anthropometric file was to identify and monitor repeat offenders, which was its raison d’être. “This process is based on photographic portraits and body measurements, and on the notation and classification of information. (…) Feet, legs, hands and ears are measured using specific poses, centimetric graduations and compasses. (…) My interest lies in the application of the police officers’ hands to those of the accused. (…) Bringing the bodies together offers the vision of a dance, a waltz between bodies. (…) A history of bodies is interwoven: the model is the criminal, the measurer is the police officer.”
By transposing these images into a new reality, Alix Delmas draws on the thread that runs through all her work on the human figure and its aesthetics.
