Dear Shaded viewers,
Last week, I had the pleasure to visit the Galerie du Jour, located on Place Jean-Michel Basquiat in Paris’s 13th arrondissement, for the opening of “As Far As You Can See”, an exhibition bringing together several decades of Erik Kessels’ work.
Erik Kessels, a major figure in vernacular photography, is deeply attached to the narrative, aesthetic, and anthropological potential of images originating from amateur practice. His approach explores the vernacular through processes of reappropriation and editorial experimentations. He collects images from auctions, flea markets, and internet, transforming them in the process. He’s as interested in the stories contained within these photographs as in the images themselves. His works depict gestures, rituals, and behaviors shared by human beings, translating them into visual narratives.
The exhibition features videos, installations, and, of course, photographs. These different mediums invite the viewers to explore the complexity and richness of the curation, offering a broad overview of Kessels’s experimental, photographic, and editorial research. The works, I’m most drawn to is the large-format photographs of deers, taken using a motion-sensor camera, which raise questions about the nocturnal lives of these animals as well as the original intention of the photographer.
There is nevertheless a touch of vivid color that recalls the work of Martin Parr, two of whose pieces are presented at the entrance of the gallery.
The exhibition questions the place of images in our society, their circulation, their interpretation, and the role they play in shaping our individual and collective representations.
You can visit the exhibition of Erik Kessels’s works from January 30 to March 15, 2026.
Later,
Alex.
