The head is a particularly popular body part amongst artists, art historians and spectators alike. Antique busts are often the only segments remaining of Greek and Egyptian sculptures, and promise a certain transcendence to past worlds. Just like death masks, they radiate an aura of proximity to their models, who continue to live through the mould. Let me take you on a brief and arbitrary journey around curiosities of the head and headlessness in art history and today. By Stefanie Hessler