PHOTO:Bettina Rheims-You Are Finished, Gentle Faces

If I hadn’t visited in the past the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac for other exhibitions, and especially because I like its Architecture and Permanent Collection, I certainly would not had chosen to visit the exhibition “You are finished, gentle faces”, with works by Bettina Rheims, that she is famous mainly for her work in the magazines, also I confess that I was negative when I saw the poster of the exhibition. However, I really liked the exhibition, mainly for two reasons and I highly recommend it to anyone being in Paris at this period. First of all the interaction of the photographs with the exhibits of the Museum that create a dialogue and a new perspective both with the Permanent Collection and the way someone approaches contemporary photography from this point of view (is well known that in Paris the Curating of exhibitions excites me every time) and the second is that through this exhibition the visitor discovers another side of the photographer, since her models resemble Renaissance figures and emit a fragile sensuality, far away from the her raw and absolutely sexual pictures we are familiarized. The works are a hymn to female femininity and sensuality, with her lens to act as a caress and not as a weapon of rage and anger as in her photos in the Life Style Magazines.-Efi Michalarou

Info: Curators: Bettina Rheims and Philippe Dagen, Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, 37 Quai Branly, Paris, Duration 20/3-3/6/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Sun 11:00-19:00, Thu-Sat 11:00-21:00, www.quaibranly.fr