For the first time, the Fondation Francès is opening the vaults of its photography collection — nearly 300 works by more than 50 artists, from Richard Avedon to Nan Goldin, Diane Arbus to Robert Mapplethorpe, Raymond Depardon to Annie Leibovitz.

"Faire Corps" presents 100 of these works across two venues, Clichy and Senlis, for an unprecedented retrospective, officially labeled as part of the Bicentennial of Photography.

To mark the Bicentennial, the Fondation Francès offers the first retrospective look at its photography collection. Twenty years of acquisitions, iconic works, and rarely shown groupings come together to tell, through images, the evolution of a medium and the trajectory of a collection.

Its guiding thread: humanity and its excesses.

"Faire Corps" shows how photography accompanies, reveals, and questions the social, cultural, and political transformations of our time — the major themes running through the collection: the fragility of existence, personal, family, social, and collective identity-building, social and political struggle, and artistic commitment and ethics.

From the very first acquisitions in 2009, photography stood out for its ability to capture the moment and the central place it gives to the body. It emerged as the natural medium through which to explore humanity and its excesses.

The collection spans three complementary dimensions:

• intimate, as a space for self-construction and emancipation;
• documentary, as a critical tool for examining social realities and situations of injustice;
• experimental, when exploring the forms, techniques, and aesthetic languages of the medium.

"Photography is, by its very nature, the medium of our collection: that of testimony, memory, reality, and commitment. It alone reflects, in all their brutality, the excesses of humanity."
— Estelle Francès