While the nine symposium presenters did not know what Elcott would say in advance and were not trying to align their presentations with a central or unifying theme, each of them, whether artist or historian, whether British-American or French-Swiss, whether discussing circus folk or political prisoners, touched on Elcott’s unifying contradiction: On one hand, each of Sander’s sitters looks different from every other Sander sitter, but even so, each person in Sander’s project still reliably represents or stands in for a recognizable German societal type. The Banker in Classes and Professions looks respectable, solid, conservative, and confident. The Master Potter in The Skilled Tradesman looks like he’s been sitting at his wheel for years, and so on. The question of how Sander achieved this seemingly paradoxical duality underlay a day’s worth of discussion.

For example, artist Tina Barney selected Sander’s The Young Farmer portfolio, a set of 21 pictures made between 1892 and roughly 1930. She spoke of Sander’s selection of specific farmers as “casting,” suggesting that no film director wants his leading man to look like his sidekick or his rival for the leading lady, and that film directors aren’t shy about presenting actors as recognizable, often clichéd, types. As part of the same thought, Barney wondered, “How much direction did [Sander] give?”

August Sander. “Boxers.” 1929. Gelatin silver print, 10 3/16 x 7 3/8" (25.8 x 18.7 cm). Acquired through the generosity of the family of August Sander. © 2016 Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur — August Sander Archiv, Cologne/ARS, NY

Many symposium speakers found film-rooted metaphors irresistible, and mused on how strangely close to cinema Sander’s procession of still images seems. MoMA curator Roxana Marcoci extended Barney’s casting idea from looking for individuals for individual pictures, encouraging us to imagine Sander casting the entire, enormous series: “We tend to focus on these iconic pictures, the baker, the bricklayer, the judge,” Marcoci said. “For me the interest in this project, and I think where we locate [the] intentionality of the project, is within the selection of this bigger compendium.”

Quentin Bajac, MoMA’s new chief curator of photography, offered up one of Sander’s funniest pictures, Boxers (1929). It shows a serious, blond, muscular young man posing next to a presumed sparring partner who is shorter, less fit — and grinning maniacally. Both are straight out of central casting: the über-fit boxer, the pudgy tomato can. “If we assume this is from a film, it is a comic one,” Bajac said, offering up Charlie Chaplin as a reference. (A few minutes later, an audience member pointed out the likeliest reason why the lesser pugilist is on the verge of having the last laugh: the blond boxer’s shoelaces are tied together. As soon as Sander is done making the picture and allows his two models to wander off, the greater athlete is going to fall flat on his face.)

August Sander. “Member of a Rural Gymnastics Club.” 1912. Gelatin silver print, 10 3/16 x 7 3/8" (25.8 x 18.7 cm). Acquired through the generosity of the family of August Sander. © 2016 Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur — August Sander Archiv, Cologne/ARS, NY

Speakers also emphasized the extent to which Sander used traditional German culture — especially popular culture but also photography and painting — to point to familiar types with a few well-understood signifiers. By leaning on familiar signifiers for profession, activity, trade, or even class, Sander could be sure his audience would understand the role of the portrait-sitter, thus freeing him to focus on seeking out range and difference for the person who would stand in for a particular type. Take Sander’s portfolio of sportsmen, titled Sport. Bajac started his presentation with the first picture in Sport, a 1912 portrait of a gymnast clad in white pants and a white shirt, clothes that effectively formed the background against which the man’s hulking forearms flex toward the viewer. Bajac noted that Sander’s German audience would have immediately recognized that the man was dressed as a prototypical German gymnast of the previous century; his curly-mop-parted-down-the-center hairstyle and mustache were practically a facial uniform for members of 19th-century gymnastic clubs. When discussing Sander’s pictures of German sporting clubs, Bajac noted that they were close in style and approach to the voluminous archives of amateur pictures of community clubs. This freed Sander to cast a distinctive-looking chap as his gymnast.