Irina Ionesco exhibition at the Rachel Hardouin and La Lison galleries - our photos

An unprecedented retrospective on photographer Irina Ionesco... The Rachel Hardouin and La Lison galleries invite you to discover the Irina Ionesco 1970 - 1980 exhibition from March 25 to May 6, 2025. Curated by the two gallerists, Valérie Dufour and Rachel Hardouin, the exhibition features a unique selection of vintage photographs and prints chosen by the photographer herself during her retrospective at Reflex Gallery in Amsterdam in 2016. This collection of original works, never before presented to the public in France, is part of an itinerant tour of two addresses in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.

Theexhibition offers an immersion into the artistic world ofIrina Ionesco, known for her baroque, transgressive, almost drag aesthetic, and her particular staging of femininity. Working with a silver-based camera and black-and-white film, the artist constructs compositions that play on the theatricalization of the body, without falling into the vision of the female body as an object. She integrates various elements, such as lace, masks, mirrors and disparate accessories, and even objects stolen from Parisian cemeteries, reflecting a singular vision of femininity, death and fetishism.

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This body of photographs is set against the backdrop of the 1970s, a period marked by social and cultural upheaval. "Irina's world lies between the reality of a complex childhood and the mirror of a dream life," explains curator Rachel Hardouin, recalling the artist's personal journey from childhood in Romania to her work as a photographer in France. Theexhibition highlights how Irina Ionesco explored notions of identity, freedom and transgression through her view of women.

Also note that specific programming around the exhibition is planned:

• Presentation of the documentary Irina Ionesco - Nocturnes Porte Dorée - Saturday March 29 from 7pm
  At Galerie Rachel Hardouin, in the presence of director Delphine Camolli. Running time 52 minutes.

• Numerology evening on Irina Ionesco's numbers - Friday April 4, 7-9pm
  With Numerologist Anne-Marie Cherrozzo at Galerie Rachel Hardouin

Far from a simple retrospective, this presentation allows us to grasp the coherence and evolution of the work of a photographer who marked her era. "Immortality, Japonism, Orientalism, fetishism, Eros and Thanatos, the world of childhood, doll's games..." are all themes that run through her work, Rachel Hardouin continues. Theexhibition is an invitation to discover or rediscover an aesthetic approach whose style and inspirations continue to question and challenge. All that remains is for you to discover this double exhibition!