“Corps à Corps” Exhibition at the Pompidou Center

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In this review I will present an exposition I had the opportunity to attend in the Pompidou Center in Paris on September 8^th, 2023. The exposition is called “Corps à corps” and started from September 6^th2023 to March 25^th, 2024.

In this exposition the visitor will discover the beauty of human identity through the lens of some of the most recognized photographers of 20^th and 21^st century. The journey starts from the classic photographers and continues with a more contemporary artistic viewpoint on modern matters. The main idea of “Corps àCorps” is to present the history of photography and to document people from a historical retrospective of events to more current topics of concern with main actor the human body.

The classical photographers’ material is in black and white captures. The use of this method is a fact as, even though non-monocrome photography were gradually emerging from 1850s, the black and white photography was mainly used until mid 20^th century. Their main goal is the awakening and the awareness of subjects linked to migration to new lands, refugee fleeting due to war, political and religious ideas and social marginalization. The photographers mostly use portraits to document their work. The power of the expression is emphasized through very close-up shots and radical interplay between light and shade.

The contemporary photographers in this exhibition use mostly black and white captures, for artistic purposes, which can offer a more minimal result and can be clearly represented the contrasts of human drama or pain with simplicity. Subjects of their interest connected with the project of “Corps à Corps” and the human body are street photography of random people, where it is visualized the raw human beauty, objectification of the human body, sexual identity and abortions.

Below there will be attached some of the exposition’s captures and, where needed, a short description of photographers’ subject of interest.

Lewis Hine, Type of Workers and Children; Immigrants at Ellis Island, Children at Work and at Play, vers 1904-1930

Lewis Hine, Type of Workers and Children; Immigrants at Ellis Island, Men; Women at Work and at Play, vers 1904-1930

Lewis Hine was a American photographer and sociologist. In my selected pictures there are portraits of children, woman and men in Ellis Island, New York , one of the most known inspection centers and processing stations in the history of migration.

Gordon Parks, Ellen Crying, Harlem, New York, 1967

Gordon Parks was American photographer and photojournalist who documented especially poverty and the civil rights of African- Americans in USA. In this photography a child is captured crying for “justice”, due to living in poverty and marginalized due to racism.

Walker Evans, Passangers dans le métro, New York, 1938-1941

Walker Evans was an American photographer and photojournalist. His main focus of interest was on the effects on the Great Depression. In these captures his main models where people into the subway, photographed spontaneously.

Unknown artist. In this portrait is represented all the affliction and the social stigma in the eyes of a woman, who decides to travel from her home country, Poland, to Slovakia in order to have an abortion. This is a more contemporary representation of the human body influenced by the Polish legislation against abortions.