Anonymous - Urban Life in Contemporary Photography

To what extent do modern cities accommodate people as individuals? It is often said that today’s big cities are anonymous, swarming human masses in which individual citizens drown. However, the isolation within the mass of urban anonymity varies greatly. While it can be an excluding factor, it also offers millions of people the freedom to live in harmony side by side. Curated from the Musée de l’Elysée’s collections, this exhibition explores various contemporary representations of anonymity in the city and its consequences on the human figure. Thanks to various formal devices, photography allows us to understand certain aspects of this anonymity – from the indistinguishable crowd to the most marginalized people, from standardized groups to anonymous heroes. Seriality, out of focus, black and white, digital manipulation or the form of photojournalism enable each photographer to accentuate certain characteristics, making it hard to resist offering a brief photographic lexicon of city life.

Curator
Pauline Martin, Musée de l’Elysée