The face is a politics, claim Deleuze and Guattari, a sheer site of power relations. In order to test the viability and implications of this assertion we will examine the face from a multitude of aspects: we will investigate what the facial features tell us and what a person's countenance reveals; we will see how faces forge identities that invite classification, surveillance and control; we will examine the ways in which the tension between black and white is manifested in the face and sexuality is played out on it; we will consider the power of the gaze and the effect of the scream and wonder what puts a smile on people's faces; all the while attending to every rebellious facial feature and to every spasm, tic or blink that might defy facialization. We will explore art's role in the politics of the face, focusing on the specific contribution of photography to facial grammar – from scientific photography's historical kinship with anthropology and criminology, through artistic portraiture highlighting the problems of representation and the violence embedded in the encounter with the face, to mundane photographic practices such as the touristic shot, the family album and the selfie, which structure in different ways one's relationship to the other and to the self.