The Space Between Us

In the Wilson Centre for Photography Collection
FROM JUNE 19, 2026 TO JANUARY 3, 2027
  • John Gutmann, Haussement d’épaules, 1935 © Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents, Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography

  • © Marc Domage
  • Shōji Ueda, Papa, maman et les enfants, 1949 © Photo Shōji UEDA, Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography
  • Tomoko Sawada, Les débuts No.31, 1997 © Tomoko Sawada, Courtesy of Rose Gallery / Wilson Centre for Photography
  • © Marc Domage
  • © Marc Domage
  • Dorothea Lange, Sans titre [Main et chapeau de travailleur], 1938 © The Dorothea Lange Collection, the Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland. Gift of Paul S. Taylor, Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography
  • © Marc Domage
  • © Marc Domage

Celebrating the bicentenary of photography’s birth, LE BAL is, for the first time, dedicating an exhibition to a single collection: the Michael and Jane Wilson collection. Through this rare ensemble of 120 prints, the exhibition delves into the elusive, luminous, and ever-shifting bond between the one behind the camera and the one in front of it.

 

From fleeting encounters to carefully staged collaborations, from images caught in the moment to collaboratively constructed scenes, the exhibition examines the relationship that comes into being, at the moment the photograph is made, between the photographer and their subject. What does the image reveal about the respective positions of these two bodies? About their complicity, their face-to-face encounter, the silent pact sealed by the gaze of one upon the appearance of the other?

The exhibition brings together iconic and lesser-known works by artists such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Robert Mapplethorpe, Francesca Woodman, Rineke Dijkstra and Gregory Crewdson in a journey that favours visual resonances, aesthetic affinities, and poetic correspondences among the images.

- Diane Dufour

 

“Always, at the centre of each photograph, there is this small struggle of consciousness between the one who reveals and the one who unveils themselves, a struggle for which the photographic portrait has always been the privileged stage.” – Bertrand Schefer

With :
Lola Álvarez Bravo, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Bill Brandt, Josef Breitenbach, Horace Bristol, Esther Bubley, Elinor Carucci, Mark Cohen, John Coplans, Gregory Crewdson, Imogen Cunningham, Bruce Davidson, Rineke Dijkstra, Walker Evans, Leonard Freed, Lee Friedlander, David Goldblatt, John Gutmann, Birney Imes, Graciela Iturbide, Sarah Jones, André Kertész, Chris Killip, Dorothea Lange, Sergio Larraín, Richard Learoyd, Danny Lyon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Roger Mayne, Susan Meiselas, Tina Modotti, Daidō Moriyama, Nicholas Nixon, Alexander Rodchenko, August Sander, Tomoko Sawada, Chris Shaw, Aaron Siskind, Graham Smith, Louis Stettner, Issei Suda, Yutaka Takanashi, Shoji Ueda, Weegee, Francesca Woodman.

Practical info

Ticketing

LE BAL
6 impasse de la Défense, 75018 Paris

Open Wednesday from 12 pm to 8 pm, and Thursday to Sunday from 12 pm to 7 pm
Closed on Monday and Tuesday 

LE BAL is open on Wednesday 11 to Sunday 15 November, from 11 am to 7 pm.

Curated by: Diane Dufour with Julie Héraut.
Scenography: Cyril Delhomme.
Exhibition produced with the support of the Wilson Centre for Photography.
The exhibition has been awarded the “Bicentenaire de la Photographie” label.
LE BAL’s programme is supported by the City of Paris, the Île-de-France Region and the Ministry of Culture.

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Conversation on The space between us

With Michael Wilson and Diane Dufour

Saturday, June 20, 2026, 11:00 AM

Exhibition visits

The space between us

Wednesdays, November 18 and December 9 at 7:00 PM

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