Simon Brodbeck & Lucie de Barbuat
France • born: 1986 & 1981
Photographic Illusions 

The exploration of memory and perception sits at the heart of Simon Brodbeck and Lucie de Barbuat’s work in photography and video and their images blend conceptual precision with a touch of poetry. Since meeting in 2005, both artists have been working together ‘to reveal what is invisible and to probe the limits of what is visible.’ Together they push the boundaries of the art of photography, challenging not only its technical limits but its established conventions.

Their photography enters into dialogue with history, painting, and cinema through its compositions and shifts in perspective. Their work also connects with the tradition of art photography, reflecting on photography itself as an artistic medium. Through their work, space, time, and light combine to create images where reality is in constant conversation with imagination. Attuned to the evolution of photography and technology, Brodbeck and de Barbuat regularly use experimental and hybrid approaches to explore how innovation can reshape our relationship with images and with everyday life.

Simon Brodbeck and Lucie de Barbuat were both residents at the Villa Medici in Rome from 2016 to 2017. They are also graduates of the École nationale supérieure de la photographie in Arles, France’s national photography school, and of the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales, a leading institute for the study of languages and cultures. Their work has been shown in numerous museums and galleries across France and abroad.

Brodbeck & de Barbuat’s work bridges the realms of documentary and fiction and creates a reflective experience for the viewer. The two series presented in this exhibition both challenge how we look at images and how we consume them. The first series, Memories of a Silent World (2008 - 2011), depicts a world deserted by humankind. In vast urban landscapes, the photographers used very long exposures, at times lasting several hours. This process erases all movement and leaves only the static elements visible in the photographs. The second series, Une Histoire Parallèle (A Parallel History), launched in 2022, delves into artificial intelligence and the mechanics of memory. Brodbeck & de Barbuat feed iconic photographs from the history of photography into generative AI, transforming them into “hallucinations” (anomalies produced by the software.) In doing so, they reinterpret images by Robert Capa and Dorothea Lange in ways that are both recognisable and unsettling.

These two bodies of work remind us that photography is not merely a means of depicting the world; it also profoundly shapes how we see it. 

Jardin du marais.