Faces of Jesus

The idea originated in 2008 from my exploration of the portrait as a photographic form, and the question of what a face can reveal and convey, but also what it conceals. At that time, I was photographing many people from all walks of life, and as I edited the images, I saw all the traces of life etched in their facial features. This gave rise to the idea for this series, which lies at the intersection of portrait photography, folklore, and religion.

Since then, I have been photographing men who take on the role of Jesus in Passion plays and interviewing them about the weeks and months they spend living this role. To do so, I have attended nearly all the Passion plays in Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic, performances that usually take place only every five, seven, or ten years. The photographs are taken before or after the performance, during intermission, and rarely during rehearsals. The questions concern the trial before the high priests, the hearing before Pontius Pilate, the flogging by Roman legionnaires, the journey to Golgotha, and the death on the cross, as well as whether their own image of Christ has influenced their performance and how it has changed.

The performers are almost always drawn from everyday life: craftsmen, artists, police officers, tax officials. People from the neighbourhood who, for a few months each year, embody one of the most famous people in human history. Some take on the role multiple times over the years. What draws them to it lies in the story itself.

The series has been exhibited on several occasions, once even alongside engravings by Albrecht Dürer, and has been published in magazines; interestingly, mostly not in my own country.
“We want to see Jesus,” Greek pilgrims say to Philip, one of the Twelve Apostles, in the Gospel of John. This longing predates any image of him and has never waned: for centuries, artists have grappled with the question of what Jesus might actually have looked like. Yet the image we are familiar with today, long hair, a full beard, was by no means established from the beginning: early Christian art initially depicted Christ as youthful and beardless, as the Good Shepherd. The bearded, long-haired type only became prevalent in the following centuries and has persisted ever since, as if there were a true original against which every depiction is measured. Forensic reconstructions based on contemporary skull finds from Galilee paint a different picture: short hair, darker skin, not a tall, fair-haired man.

Of course, the question of appearance is only the surface-level one. There is no original against which an image can be verified. Every face remains open to whatever the viewer himself projects onto it. Therein lies the mystery, and above all, therein also lies the answer to the question of what Jesus might have looked like.

Even photography cannot answer this question. Its claim to capture reality directly makes it the perfect tool for a desire that is older than any camera.