Beyond the Spectacle

Curators: François Cheval, Yasmine Chemali
Opening : 20.02.2026

In early 1953, in Vallauris, André Villers crossed paths with destiny: Pablo Picasso. From this encounter arose ten years of friendship and creative complicity. Picasso gave him his first Rolleiflex, the “sewing machine” which would become his instrument of alchemy. From Diurnes (1962) to Pliages d’Ombres (1977), André Villers established himself as an innovator, cutting, layering, and transforming the image. Faithful to the spirit of Michel Butor, Villers pushed the boundaries of visual storytelling. The image was no longer a mirror of reality, but a fracture; it questioned the distance between the author, the subject, and the viewer. Even today, we are invited to rethink photography. With Elsa Leydier and Clara Chichin, the photographic act regains the slowness and precision of an artisanal gesture. The photographer once again becomes a nomadic gatherer, a sower of images, and a patient companion of the living. It is a point worth dwelling on: photography can, and must, remain a living organism—a pigmentary body composed of signs, emulsions, and vibrant microelements.


Biographies

Born in Beaucourt, in eastern France, near the Japy and Peugeot factories, André Villers (1930-2016) entered the Vallauris sanatorium in 1947 to treat bone decalcification. It was there that he discovered photography, took his first classes, and began experimenting with developers, shaping a singular visual universe. A self-taught artist, he developed from the 1950s a practice focused on exploring photographic processes: multiple exposures, solarizations, collages, photograms, variations in printing, and direct interventions on the image. The darkroom became a true laboratory for him, where photography was conceived as matter, visual writing, and process. Each image resulted from a careful dialogue between artistic intention, technical constraint, and controlled chance. Although he is often primarily associated with photographing Pablo Picasso, this exhibition reveals that André Villers was far more than that. It celebrates his creativity and his singular photographic vision. His attention to process went hand in hand with a passion for books and publishing, which he considered privileged spaces for invention. Throughout his career, André Villers created works and artist’s books in collaboration with artists, writers, and poets such as Pablo Picasso, Claude Viallat, Ben, Arman, César, Hans Hartung, Jacques Prévert, Michel Butor, and Louis Aragon. These collaborations gave rise to hybrid forms in which text and image interact, overlap, and transform, extending his fascination with formal experimentation.

Clara Chichin (born 1985) is a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris and holds a master’s degree in Literature, Arts and Contemporary Thought. For over a decade, she has developed a photographic practice grounded in the sensory experience of landscape, wandering, and everyday life. Her work embraces a poetics of image-assensation, in which landscape, the vegetat, and natural elements are treated as perceptual materials rather than descriptive subjects. Walking and drifting are central to her process, shaping an embodied encounter with places, where the landscape is felt rather than depicted. Rooted in an ecopoetic photographic approach, her work reflects on our relationship to the living world and seeks forms of re-enchantment in response to contemporary ecological challenges. A finalist for the Leica Prize in 2017, Clara Chichin has exhibited her work at the Abbey of Saint-Georges de Boscherville, the Jeu de Paume, and the 38th International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Accessories at Villa Noailles. Between 2022 and 2024, she developed a collaborative project with Sabatina Leccia, resulting in the publication Le Bruissement entre les murs (Sun/Sun, 2024), finalist for the Author Book Prize at Les Rencontres d’Arles and the Nadar Prize 2025.

Elsa Leydier (born 1988) is a visual artist and photographer, graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles in 2015. After living for over eight years in Brazil, she now lives and works between Paris and Marseille. Her work explores the power and circulation of iconic images. Drawing on the visual codes of idealized representations, Elsa Leydier reappropriates and deconstructs them to reveal the social, political, and environmental issues they convey. Her practice unfolds through photographic installations that bring together the aesthetics of activism and luxury, conceived as visual ecosystems. For several years, she has been exploring ecofeminism through her long-term project Les Désobéissances. In 2019, Elsa Leydier was awarded the Maison Ruinart/Paris Photo Prize and the Dior Prize for Young Photography. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions in Colombia, the United States, France, Portugal, and the Netherlands, as well as in group exhibitions and fairs, including Paris Photo, ARCO Madrid, the Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles, Month of Photography Los Angeles, the Kyotographie festival, Galerie Le Réverbère, agnès b. gallery, Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, and the Circulation(s) festival in Paris.

André Villers,
Manipulations
From the series Pliages d’Ombres (Artist’s book comprising 5 photographs by André Villers
and a text by Michel Butor Pliages d’Ombres)
1977, Gelatin silver print, 50 × 40 cm
© André Villers, ADAGP, Paris, 2026

© Clara Chichin / ADAGP
Les précipités serie
Digigraphie
2025
40 x 60 cm

© Bertien van Manen, Let’s Sit Down Before We Go, Apanas, Pjotr, 1993