Mimmo Jodice at the Louvre, Paris

LOUVRE PHOTO
November 4, 2026 - May 3, 2027

FROM THE PRESS RELEASE 

The opening of the Louvre preceded the birth of photography by a few decades. The museum, which combines the real and the imaginary and allows you to travel through time and space, was a fertile cradle of inspiration for the first photographers. The Louvre Photo exhibition focuses on the Louvre as a model, as a subject, as a source of inspiration, as an object of diversion. Through more than 300 photographs such as photographs of the Louvre, its works, its exhibition rooms, its open spaces, but also famous and anonymous visitors, museum actors, hidden places and backstage – Louvre Photo invites discovery and revelation, by summoning renewed, distanced looks, sometimes not without humour or offbeatness, about the museum, the institution and its collections.

Louvre Photo covers the long period from the invention of photography to the present, from the first photographers to those now invited by the museum, such as Robert Polidori recently. This period was marked by major historical events such as the Commune, the First and Second World Wars, and the diplomatic and tourist flourishing of the Glorious Thirties. It has also been marked by key moments in the history of the Louvre, such as the transformation of the palace into a museum under the Second Empire, the movement and return of works during the two world wars, and the creation of the Grand Louvre in the 1980s.

By being part of a unity of place - that delimited by the walls of the building and by the railings of its gardens, the Tuileries in particular - Louvre Photo highlights the photographic collections kept at the Louvre within the various collection departments, documentary collections that are still active, as well as the collections of French institutions, in particular the National Archives, the Médiathèque de la Photographie et du Patrimoine, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Musée d'Orsay, the Musée Carnavalet, the Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris. The exhibition also highlights the commissions given to photographers by the Louvre since the early 2000s.

The scenography is by Juan-Felipe Alarcon and the graphic design by the Atelier Pierre/Pierre.

This exhibition is labeled by the Bicentenary of Photography by the Ministry of Culture and is part of the official program of the Bicentenaryfrom September 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027.