A renowned director and author, Alain Guiraudie has been developing his photography practice for several years, which has gradually established itself as an autonomous field within his artistic career. First exhibited at the Crèvecoeur Gallery, then at the Consortium in Dijon and the Buccholz Gallery in Berlin (2023), photography now occupies a decisive place in his work, while maintaining a discreet dialogue with cinema and literature.

Where his films and novels—from Du soleil pour les gueux (Sunshine for the Poor) and Ce vieux rêve qui bouge (That Old Dream that Moves) (2001) to Ici commence la nuit (Here Begins the Night) (2014)—freely traverse the picaresque, the fantastic, the comic, and the erotic, photography offers another mode of appearance. It moves between portraiture, the nude, and landscape. An unidentified forest becomes a natural amphitheater; two characters stand at a distance; a cassock appears like a sign.

The photographer’s position is neither that of the filmmaker nor that of the writer. The artist creates apparitions on the border between the ordinary and the mythical, keeping the normal, moral world at a distance. A plot seems to unfold, but it remains partial, fragmentary. We sense a treasure hunt, we understand that part of the plot escapes us, but the clues are familiar and obvious.

This exhibition thus offers a unique insight into a photographic practice that has rarely been shown, while revealing its profound coherence with the artist’s entire body of work. Far from concluding a discourse, these photographs open up a space of continuity, where cinema, photography, and writing respond to and extend each other.

To quote Pool Oxanosas Daï, the “warrior of pursuit” from Du soleil pour les gueux: “Here, roads only lead to other roads.” In this exhibition, Alain Guiraudie traces a mystical and mysterious geography that we are free to explore or uncover.