The Space Between Us

To mark the bicentenary of the birth of photography, LE BAL is presenting, for the first time, an exhibition devoted to a single collection: that of Michael and Jane Wilson / The Wilson Centre for Photography. Through this collection of 120 prints, the exhibition explores the sometimes elusive, sometimes luminous and always shifting relationship between the photographer and the person photographed.

From fleeting encounters to carefully staged collaborations, from images captured in the moment to collaboratively constructed scenes, the exhibition examines the relationship that comes into being, at the moment the photograph is made, between the photographer and their subject. What does the image reveal about the respective positions of these two bodies? About their complicity, their face-to-face encounter, the silent pact sealed by the gaze of one upon the appearance of the other?

The exhibition brings together iconic works and lesser-known images, dating from the 1920s to the present day, in a sensitive journey shaped by visual echoes, affinities and unexpected correspondences between images.