IN IMAGES
Thomas Klotz Explores Urban Peripheries
Through 16 exhibited works, the artist investigates the liminal zones of cities — those often invisible outskirts where essential stories of our time unfold. On view until October 18, 2025, at Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière, in Paris.
By Jonas Cuénin. Photos by Thomas Klotz.
Six years after his first book, Northscape, devoted to his native region in northern France, Thomas Klotz reconnects with his early obsessions: street photography and the suburban landscapes that define our contemporary era. With “Periferia,” he expands the scope of his exploration, taking us through various parts of France — and even beyond.
The images on display span several countries and continents. From the Île-de-France to Argentina, through Poland, Guadeloupe, and the United States, Klotz walks these landscapes with precision and discipline. Each photograph captures the singular atmosphere of these marginal places. “Unlike Northscape (an earlier body of work) imbued with a sense of solitary wandering, ‘Periferia’ distinguishes itself through a re-humanization of his approach to territory. While acknowledging the formative role of humanist photography, Thomas Klotz has long sought to distance himself from that aesthetic,” explains Damarice Amao, author of the exhibition text and Curator at the Photography Department of the Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Shot with a large-format camera, the photographs alternate between portraits and urban landscapes. Muted tones and subdued light give these scenes a dimension that is both documentary and poetic. The photographer favors a restrained approach, attentive to detail. “Constantly look at what we think we can photograph — what, however banal or anonymous, will in the end reveal something,” he says. “Attentive to their expressions and their features captured with remarkable precision, Klotz establishes with each subject a silent face-to-face,” adds Damarice Amao.
“Periferia” does not aim to document in the strict sense. Rather, it offers an invitation to look differently at these everyday living spaces. The images expose a tension between the desire for escape and an intimate sense of belonging. “I’ve always preferred the notion of periphery — that which lies beside — rather than the central subject,” says the photographer.
The word periphery is, of course, at the heart of the project. Klotz chooses this term over others like suburb or zone to preserve a neutral tone. For him, these are spaces of passage and life — neither entirely central nor entirely marginal. “There is nothing more natural than observing that a world exists on the edges of our own, and beyond that, another still,” he reflects.
The exhibition and the accompanying book illustrate this diversity by bringing together views from Dunkirk, Rotterdam, Dallas, Thiais, and Mendoza. Each place becomes a reflection of a globalized world. Here, Klotz returns to his primary obsession: a close observation of the banal and the anonymous. “The relationship between center and periphery has been endlessly explored across all fields of thought — from suburban utopias to the aesthetics of housing estates, through gentrification eating away at the landscape, or the metaphor of exclusion. It may therefore be interesting to inject a bit of disorder into a subject too often confined to topographical, urbanistic, or sociological discourse.”
“Periferia,” by Thomas Klotz, is on view at Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière until October 18, 2025. The eponymous book is published by Maison CF and available for €55.
