In Why Am I Alive Now?, ANOHNI’s voice moves over Gael Rakotondrabe’s cascading piano, Sam Dixon’s grounded bass, Doug Wieselman’s plaintive clarinet, and the percussive pulse that keeps the lament breathing.
ANOHNI AND THE JOHNSONS: TINY DESCK CONCERT
RAMO
LES MAINS DE MARGARET NEIMAN
©Man Ray Trust/Adagp, Paris
Man Ray, circa 1945
A gelatin silver print on paper, this photograph captures the hands of Margaret Neiman, a model and muse within Man Ray’s artistic circle. The image measures 12 × 9 cm and belongs to the Cabinet de la photographie of the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou.
Created around 1945, the print is part of Man Ray’s post-Surrealist period, reflecting his enduring interest in fragmentation, the body, and symbolism.
ECHOES ON THE SECOND FLOOR
2 July 2025, Paris
Lately, my dates always begin or end with rain. This one arrived dressed in overcast light, the kind that brushes everything with a hush. It was the second of July in Paris, and the sky had just finished raining in the early hours, leaving behind a softness that clung to windows, steps, and thoughts. I wandered into the Centre Pompidou just as the wind lifted slightly, as if something unseen had stirred.
The old BPI library, once dense with books and whispers, now stood emptied, not abandoned, but expectant. I hadn't planned to feel sentimental about industrial carpet, but there it was: faded marks where shelves once stood, an unintentional grid of ghosts. It suited the occasion.
Wolfgang Tillmans had taken over the entire second level for his retrospective, "Nothing Could Have Prepared Us, Everything Could Have Prepared Us". It didn’t feel like an exhibition. It felt like someone had broken open their own archive and invited me to walk barefoot through the aftershock.
There were no clear paths, no forced chronology. Photographs were taped to walls, laid flat on tables, and paused mid-thought on giant prints. Some shimmered with a club's pulse, others with domestic quiet. One moment, I was looking at skin, impossibly close, damp with motion. Next, I was face to face with a storm cloud that looked like it might swallow the entire city of Lagos. These images didn’t explain themselves. They simply were, like light or hunger.
BONJOUR, AGAIN
There is a particular shade of blue that only exists in memory. You know it: the one that clings to tiled pools, childhood dusk, and cigarette smoke curling through an open window. Durga Chew-Bose’s Bonjour Tristesse swims entirely in that blue.
It is not a remake of the 1958 film, nor a faithful adaptation of Sagan's book; it is something more elliptical, more dangerous. A murmured echo rather than a reply. Here, the camera doesn’t follow bodies so much as it hovers, like withheld affection. Sunlight isn't incidental; it's predatory. Every frame feels hand-touched, as if someone has been living in it quietly for weeks, folding linens, watching you sleep.
The photography is liquid and unhurried. There’s a patience to how the light sculpts faces, not in flattery, but in exposure. Chew-Bose’s camera is both conspirator and witness. It doesn’t intrude. It waits. Especially on the character of Cécile, not the coquettish teen we’ve been taught to expect, but a girl carved from sea-glass and dry wit, with a voice that folds cruelty into charm the way silk folds into shadow.
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