Every Photograph Is an Enigma

Photographs often seem immediately familiar and understandable. But they can also provoke sudden amazement or generate a more sustained perplexity and inquiry. Drawing on a diversity of photographs from his private collection, the photo historian Michel Frizot offers us a questioning counterpoint that works against the grain of received historical and artistic criteria. His assembled images, taken by lovers or unknown career photographers, fall through the gaps of contemporary aesthetic and interpretative categories. Every photograph generates a distance between the human mind and the light-sensitive recording of the camera apparatus; every photograph has a secret. Since photographs exceed our capacity for vision and can inspire intense emotion, they foster empathy and the desire to project our personal fears onto them. The intensity of the secret in every photograph is testimony to our humanity.

The exhibition is accompanied by the fully-illustrated catalogue Toute photographie fait énigme/Every photography is an enigma, by Michel Frizot, in collaboration with Cédric de Veigy. Published by Éditions Hazan (English/French).

The exhibition was curated by Michel Frizot. A collaboration with the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, and the Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon-sur-Saône.

Supported by the Monterosa Group, the Hulda and Gustav Zumsteg-Stiftung and Wirz Tapeten AG.