The Jeu de Paume museum in Paris is hosting a major retrospective exhibition of renowned French photographer Luc Delahaye, marking his first solo show in the city in nearly two decades. The exhibition, titled "Luc Delahaye: Le bruit du monde" (The Noise of the World), presents 70 works created between 2001 and 2025, spanning a transformative period when the artist transitioned from photojournalism to contemporary art.
Born in Tours in 1962, Delahaye established himself as one of the most remarkable figures in contemporary photography. During the 1990s, he gained recognition as one of the era's greatest photojournalists and was a member of the prestigious Magnum agency. However, in 2000, he made a decisive career shift, leaving both Magnum and the news industry to integrate his photojournalistic vision into the contemporary art world.
Curated by Quentin Bajac, the exhibition explores Delahaye's unique approach to documenting global conflicts and institutional responses over the past 25 years. His large-scale color photographs capture the disorders of the contemporary world, from the Iraq War to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, from Haiti to Libya, and from OPEC conferences to COP climate summits. As Delahaye explains his philosophy: "To arrive through a form of absence, through a form of unconsciousness perhaps, at a unity with reality. A silent unity. The practice of photography is a rather beautiful thing: it allows this reunification of oneself with the world."
The exhibition showcases approximately 40 large-format photographs, including some previously unseen works created specifically for this show. Visitors will also encounter a video installation about the Syrian conflict, which Delahaye has been documenting for many years, as well as a large installation presented in a format entirely new to the artist. Throughout the exhibition journey, the creative process is highlighted through visual sources and rejected images, providing insight into the artist's methodology.
Delahaye's artistic evolution is clearly traced through distinct periods of his work. From the late 1990s, he began diversifying how his images were distributed beyond traditional press outlets, publishing several artist books including "Portraits/1" (1996), featuring portraits of homeless people taken in photo booths; "Mémo" (1997), a collection of war victims' portraits from Sarajevo newspaper obituaries; and "L'Autre" (1999), a series of candid metro passenger portraits. These early works demonstrated his desire to erase the operator's presence and depersonalize the photographic gaze.
Between 2001 and 2005, Delahaye employed a panoramic camera to create large images with elongated proportions. This format enabled a broader vision, subject distancing, and open interpretation. The panoramic approach became his means of constructing an observation space devoid of emotion, conducive to a wider understanding of human situations whether documenting refugee camps, UN meetings, or funeral ceremonies in Rwanda. The photographer appeared absent from these works, positioning viewers not within the image but facing it directly.
From 2005 onward, Delahaye's practice evolved significantly as panoramic photography gave way to digital compositions based on multiple, carefully staged shots. He sought to capture situational complexity within single images while maintaining fundamental ambiguity and rejecting univocal interpretations. This evolution coincided with broader format experimentation and an increased emphasis on human figures, where detail became essential for anchoring images in reality.
As his methodology matured, Delahaye traveled less frequently and for shorter periods, with computer work becoming his primary tool and his practice increasingly resembling writing. His studio transformed into a laboratory for developing essentially contemplated images, where the process of transforming reality became more complex and lengthy. Despite this shift toward digital composition, the moment of initial capture remained central, with all works dated to the day of original shooting.
A prime example of this approach is "Soldiers of the Syrian Army, Aleppo, November 2012," dated to 2012 despite being completed in 2023 from views taken during the Syrian conflict. This complex composition, shown publicly for the first time in the exhibition, reveals the tension between compositional work and presence in reality that characterizes Delahaye's mature practice.
The 2010s witnessed a significant expansion of Delahaye's artistic vocabulary through new experiments including video work, returns to black and white photography with impersonal aesthetics, and research extending beyond single images through sequences, series, and polyptychs. His treatment of human figures also evolved dramatically, with silhouettes becoming full bodies scaled to match viewers' perspectives. The individuals represented, often anonymous, acquired universal value as Delahaye depicted people suffering from pain: soldiers, prisoners, displaced persons, wandering children, vulnerable populations, and men and women absorbed in their tasks.
His focused bodies of work in India (2013), Senegal (2019-2020), and the West Bank (2015-2017) constitute closed ensembles existing on the margins of his broader oeuvre. These projects concentrate on forms of everyday life through specific concerns: documenting a village's planned disappearance in India, exploring manual labor and sacred elements in Senegal, and capturing ordinary life and resistance forms in occupied territories.
Today, Delahaye continues to embrace multiple approaches and methods including digital composition, staging, and instantaneous imagery, though staging and composition remain essential for developing images free from both authorial subjectivity and reality's contingency. His work serves as a comprehensive description of global conditions during the first quarter of the 21st century—a tormented world dominated by tumult where conflicts, wars, and their echoes within international institutions play predominant roles.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive reference publication in the form of a catalogue raisonné, reproducing and cataloguing all 74 works created by the artist over these 25 transformative years. "Luc Delahaye: Le bruit du monde" runs from October 10, 2025, through January 4, 2026, at Jeu de Paume, located at 1, place de la Concorde in the Jardin des Tuileries, accessible via the Concorde Metro station.
