A cultural unpacking of our most scrutinized organ ... The trouble with analytic histories that situate themselves across all recorded time is that a unifying argument can seem elusive ... Here the richness of the research more than compensates for whatever rhetorical weaknesses.
Well-researched, yet conversational ... Bound-Alberti shows a keen eye for how history and technology shaped, and continues to shape, and reshape, the idea of what a face is and how it is used ... More a survey than it is a polemic—its subtitle says as much ... Leaves us thinking about the notion of facehood, challenging how assumptions (of others, of ourselves) are made, and how our faces are racialized, and gendered before we even speak.
An expansive exploration of the human face and the extraordinary burden it has been made to carry ... Bound-Alberti is keen to stress the social and cultural implications, rather than condemn individuals ... The book reveals how historical biases continue to affect the marginalised ... It is a shame that The Face veers, chapter by chapter, into the abstract ... Still, The Face is a meticulously researched and unsettling book, and Bound-Alberti’s overarching message is poignant.
Equal parts gripping and scholarly, The Face is a timely book that gets to the heart of contemporary society ... Bound-Alberti reminds us that it’s up to us to monitor it — and to understand and appreciate what we already have.
An elegant history that moves from the ancient Greeks through Renaissance portraiture to the arrival of mirrors, Instagram filters and face transplants, investigating the politics of how we understand ourselves and judge one another ... Especially compelling is Bound Alberti’s suggestion that while world views shift, many of the prejudices and assumptions projected onto faces remain ... Scholarly but not unapproachable, The Face ultimately argues that the transformation we need most is one of perception.
The deductions Bound-Alberti makes from the archaeological and historical record can be dubious ... Around halfway through The Face, by which point Bound-Alberti has covered portraiture, photography and mirrors, it becomes clear that the 'cultural history' format may not be the ideal vehicle for the story she has to tell ... This podcast-style art history doesn’t make for a lively read so much as hint at subtleties glossed over ... When the scene shifts to the 21st century, however, The Face hits its stride ... On page after page, Bound-Alberti reveals the extent of our present-day fixation on faces and compulsion to mess with them. The live questions in this book, in other words, are ethical rather than cultural ... A deeper intuition about human interaction shows through the 'facehood' narrative.
An elegant book organised by what humans have done to faces ... Accessible and engaging, but at its most compelling when it becomes polemical, showing how the sexism, classism and racism that informs how we have long perceived faces is reinforced today ... The message that emerges powerfully from this timely book is that, instead of trying to change the way our faces look, due to personal dissatisfaction or social stigma, we would be better off changing the way we see others and ourselves.
In her lavishly illustrated and intellectually provocative study, British historian Bound-Alberti goes back through Western history to uncover how faces became so significant to us and to analyze our preoccupation with optimizing and altering the way our faces appear to ourselves and those who view them ... Sensitively explores the pros and cons of the controversial face-transplant procedure, based on extensive interviews with those who have received them ... You won’t look in the mirror the same way again.
A stimulating reconsideration of the long-standing role of the face as a perceived window into a person’s inner substance ... Bound-Alberti’s roving narrative touches on everything from eugenics to makeup to the first selfie (taken in 1839 by Philadelphian Robert Cornelius, who could not have foreseen that generations later there would be a perennial online debate about his relative 'hotness'). It makes for a fun and thought-provoking rumination on what it means to take each other at face value.
