This is a Paris we rarely hear about. The Paris of voluntary or forced exile, of suitcases left in transit, of words cast like anchors into the Seine. “Paris Noir” (Black Paris), an exhibition at the Clémentine de la Féronnière gallery, unravels the threads of this scattered but essential memory: that of artistic circulations and African and Afro-descendant diasporas between 1950 and 2000, embodied by three photographers who were united by nothing but continents—George Hallett, William Melvin Kelley, James Barnor—but united by everything: exile, resistance, beauty.
Through Alicia Knock, curator of contemporary art and curator of the exhibition “Paris Noir” at the Centre Pompidou, the gallery partnered with this project, enriching the public’s experience beyond the walls of the Centre Pompidou. These programs are identified by the Echo Paris Noir label. Collectively, the gallery contributed to the exhibition, whether through regular exchanges with the Centre Pompidou, with Christine Eyene (curator of the George Hallett exhibition), as well as with Jesi and Aiki Kelley, the family of W. M. Kelley.
Through their eyes, the gallery becomes a crossroads of stories and faces, of shadows and lights, of moments suspended between here and elsewhere. “Paris Noir” is less a place than a tension—a creative, political, poetic tension. That of a diaspora in motion, elusive but very real, which has made Paris a theater of reflections and struggles.
Three looks, one topic
We first delve into the photographic world of William Melvin Kelley, also a writer, “a lost giant of American literature” according to the New Yorker, and the subject of a first retrospective in France. A discreet photographer, a reluctant chronicler of a vibrant era. In black and white, he captured black Parisian life in the 1960s with a furtive grace, like a family photographer who has found himself at the heart of a political manifesto. His images have slept in the shadows, here they are, as if exhumed, alive, burning with intimacy and clairvoyance.
Then there is George Hallett. A South African, forced into exile under apartheid, he captured humanity at its most dignified, from District Six in Cape Town to portraits of writers exiled in London or Paris. There is a tenderness of eye, a modesty in the frame. His images do not denounce, they reveal—in looks, gestures, places—the naked pride of existence. His book covers and gelatin silver prints we discover here are fragments of a world-work, where the struggle is embodied in bodies and silences.
Finally, in the bookstore space, James Barnor—the dean—an emblematic figure of Ghanaian and diaspora photography, awakens the colors of dreams. Post-independence Ghana, Swinging London, and Black youth in majesty for Drum magazine, an influential newspaper founded in South Africa in 1951, symbolizing the anti-apartheid movement. He shot models in the streets of Kilburn, immortalizing Afro-hairstyles and new hopes. Between studio photographs and snapshots taken in the streets, with him, photography becomes a projection surface: fashion, pride, the future. His images have the joyful lightness of an era that believed in change, and whose trace, here, proves more precious than ever.
“Each of the artists exhibited has their own unique background,” adds Jehan de Bujadoux, director of the Clémentine de la Féronnière gallery. “W.M. Kelley is American, he was very active in the fight for civil rights in the United States, he was present at the assassination of Malcolm X and this event will mark his departure for France. George Hallett is South African, his work on District Six takes place in the midst of Apartheid in a neighborhood designated as “white” and set to be transformed (in reality partially destroyed). Finally, James Barnor is Ghanaian, his studio in Accra opened in 1947 and witnessed for 10 years the emancipation movements that would lead to the country’s independence from England in 1957, before he himself left for London until the late 1960s.”
Archives of a struggle
But “Paris Noir” is not just an exhibition of sensitive archives. It is a mapping of connections. A journey. We read in the background the birth of a visual language common to the African and Afro-descendant diasporas, a language of the in-between, of intertwining. At a time when questions of identity, heritage and memory are being reclaimed and exploited, this exhibition reminds us of the essential: photography is not just an art, it is a compass.
At the Clémentine de la Féronnière gallery, we emerge burdened with faces, voices, and rhythms from a bygone era that has left its mark. Echoing the phrase inscribed in the background of a Hallett image: “Long live the Blacks.”
“Paris Noir” is on view until May 17, 2025 at the Clémentine de la Ferronière gallery in Paris.
