The exhibition was eagerly awaited by art lovers.
Postponed twice, it was devoted to black and white and was to be held at the Grand Palais, in Paris.
But was, once again, a victim of the health crisis.
The institution announced this Thursday its final cancellation in a press release: "
In view of the health situation, the
Black & White
exhibition
: an aesthetic of photography
(...) will definitely not open its doors
".
Read also: A year without museums, or monuments or almost
Initially scheduled for April, the exhibition was postponed for the first time from November 12 to January 4, 2021, then a second time from December 16 to February 1, 2021. Unable to receive its audience, it had decided to a few weeks before Christmas, to take up residence in the Paris metro.
150 years of photography history
Some 300 black and white prints of great names in photography were to appear alongside each other on the walls of the Grand Palais.
From Man Ray to Helmut Newton via Diane Arbus, Robert Frank and Cartier Bresson.
The exhibition, created in collaboration with the BnF, focused on the technical and aesthetic bias of black and white, covering nearly 150 histories of photography.
Read also: Modern and contemporary art exhibitions on the hypothetical 2021 program
To console itself for its cancellation, the Grand Palais nevertheless offers some alternatives.
In addition to the exhibition catalog, which is still on sale, a short 15-minute film has been added online, called
The Black and White Artists of Yesterday and Today.
This brings together the testimonies of photographers William Klein, Man Ray and Édouard Boubat.
Also on the internet, an interactive slide show for the youngest retraces in pictures the history of the practice.
Finally, the Grand Palais also specifies that the exhibition will be available "
via an interactive virtual tour on the grandpalais.fr site during the month of next February
".
This sad news comes even as the institution is preparing to close its doors in March for renovation until 2024. And other museums accuse the same blow.
Cumulating their lack of revenue for almost a year, at the cost of their work and absence to come.
Like the Center Pompidou which announced on January 25 that it would close to the public for three years, from the end of 2023 to 2027.
