Exhibition from October 26 to December 21 , 2024
Opening on Saturday, October 26, 7pm,
until November 30, Wed. - Fri. 4 - 7 pm, Sat. 11 am - 3 pm
gallery is closed during Paris Photo November 6 - 10
until December 21st by appointment by phone: 0177 3202913.
"Paris is considered the cradle of photography, the glorious starting point of the new medium. It was here that the photograph in the form of the Daguerreotype was made public in mid-August 1839 and presented to an astonished world public without a patent. A date that marked nothing less than the beginning of the photographic age. It is no coincidence that the photographer and historian Jean Claude Gautrand speaks of a >love story between Paris and photography<, which probably refers to the large number of chemists, opticians and artists who immediately took up the new medium as researchers or practitioners, as well as to the fact that Paris itself quickly and privilegedly became the subject of images." (Hans-Michael Koetzle, from: Eyes on Paris, 2011)
In this exhibition, the in focus gallery - Burkhard Arnold in Cologne is showing a unique collection of photographs by world-famous artists such as Ilse Bing, Edouard Boubat, Jean-Philippe Charbonnier, Elliott Erwitt, René Groebli, Frank Horvat, Walde Huth, Thomas Kellner, Willy Maywald, Marc Riboud, Willy Ronis, Louis Stettner and Sabine Weiss. The photographs in this exhibition, most of which were taken between 1950 and 1980, offer a fascinating insight into the attitude to life in Paris at that time, while typical sights appear little or only as a peripheral phenomenon. What many of the exhibited photographs have in common is a certain tendency towards nostalgia and the depiction of an urban, upbeat atmosphere that is presented as typical of Paris. The canon of motifs includes lovers, clochards, fashion, dogs, bistros, nightlife, bridges over the Seine, children at play and the small, modest and sometimes overlooked things in everyday life: people passing by, shop window displays, staircases, parks, billboards or street lamps.
These photographs show the lives of ordinary people as well as the charm of Paris as a city of love, fashion, nightlife and café culture.