Love Songs: Enter The Intimacy Of Photographers At The Mep

This summer, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie presents a fascinating exhibition that takes us into the intimacy of photographers. This two-part exhibition, entitled Love Songs, brings to light and to music the love relationships experienced by the artists themselves.

The history of photography revisited

With the exhibition Love Songs, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie revisits the history of this discipline from the 1950s to the present day, through the prism of photographers' romantic relationships.

This group exhibition takes the viewer into the intimacy of photographers in the most radical way possible.

For the occasion, the MEP exhibits no less than 14 photographers, including René Groebli, Emmet Gowin, Larry Clark, Sally Mann, Leigh Ledare, Hervé Guibert or Alix Cléo Roubaud as well as contemporary artists JH Engström & Margot Wallard, RongRong&inri, Lin Zhipeng, Hideka Tonomura or Collier Schorr.

Some of the images presented are directly from his collections, while others come from all over the world.




The eye of love

Usually, photographic exhibitions on the theme of love present great classics such as The Kiss at City Hall by Robert doisneau or portraits of mythical couples like Yoko Ono and John Lennon or Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera...

In the exhibition Love Songs, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie has chosen a very different approach. The tour opens with the series L'Œil de l'amour by René Groebli, one of the last representatives of the golden age of Swiss photography.

In this series, the photographer immortalizes his young wife on their honeymoon in Paris in the early 1950s.





To immerse visitors in the intimacy of the young couple, the exhibition goes so far as to recreate the wallpaper of the Parisian hotel where the photographer and his wife celebrated their honeymoon.

An intimate approach to the subject

Despite its title, the Love Songs exhibition at the MEP is not just a classic photo exhibition on the theme of love.

Through the eyes of photographers in love, the visitor enters the intimacy of these artists who immortalized their own existence and tried to capture through their lens the very essence of feelings.





The exhibition is built around photographer Nan Goldin, and more specifically her iconic series, The ballad of sexual dependency, and controversial Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki, who was accused in 2018 of moral harassment by one of his former models.

By offering a view of the romantic relationship that is as subjective as it is unusual, this exhibition challenges the viewer. You may be uncomfortable with the intimacy expressed in these sometimes disturbing shots.

An exhibition designed as a playlist

To discover these intimate images, visitors are invited to wander through the galleries of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie with wireless headphones in which a playlist composed especially for this event is played.

The Love Songs exhibition lives up to its name as it was imagined as a handcrafted compilation of songs. Just like the audio cassettes of the past, it is composed of an A side dedicated to the period from the 1950s to 2000 and a B side dedicated to the years 2000 to the present.

Through this fascinating experience, the visitor perceives how powerless photography is to capture love. At most, photographers can try to capture its traces and collect its fragments.

Practical information

The exhibition Love Songs, photographs of the intimate is held at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie until August 21, 2022.

Address
Maison Européenne de la Photographie
5/7 rue de Fourcy
75004 Paris

Schedules
Open:
- Wednesday and Friday from 11am to 8pm
- Thursday from 11am to 10pm
- weekends from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
(slot reserved for subscribers on Sundays from 10am to 11am)

Prices
Full price: 11 €.
Reduced rate: 7 €.

Author: Audrey
Copyright image: Nan Goldin
Tags: Love Songs, LOVE, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, MEP, intimacy, Photography, Instagram, playlist, Paris, honeymoon, romantic, audio cassettes, eye, wallpaper, hotel, Lens, Nan Goldin, price, Japanese, Araki, rue, moral, harassment, powerless, ballad, wireless, headphones, subjective, Swiss, Golden Age, prism, radical, Larry Clark, Sally Mann, Hervé Guibert, Margot, inri, Lin, Collier Schorr, Classics, Kiss, City Hall, Robert Doisneau, Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, light,
More informations: https://www.mep-fr.org/
In French: Love Songs : entrez dans l'intimité des photographes à la MEP
En español: Canciones de amor: entra en la intimidad de los fotógrafos en el MEP
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