Paris Photography Show: A Blinkered View?

The 'Remember Me' exhibition at Paris's Bourse de Commerce presents 700 works from François Pinault's photography collection. While opening with a powerful installation by Barbara Kruger, the show quickly devolves into a "blinkered" and "didactic" experience, according to critics. A significant issue is the overwhelming focus on Irving Penn, with nearly 450 of the 700 works attributed to him. This heavy reliance on Penn and conventional styles creates a skewed perception of photography's breadth.

The exhibition's organization is also problematic, dedicating large spaces to single artists like Penn. While his works are presented artistically, the portrayal of his colonial-era portraits from Cameroon and Benin, alongside Vogue commissions, draws criticism for appearing extractive and ethnographic. This contrasts sharply with the more nuanced depictions by artists like Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta from the same period.

Further critiques highlight the exhibition's failure to address photography's historical role in colonialism, cultural extraction, and appropriation, particularly within the fashion industry. The show's didactic approach, which overexplains photographic techniques and themes, is seen as an unnecessary "dumbing-down" of an accessible medium. It imposes an anxious need to overexplain rather than allowing viewers to engage independently with the works.