The Centre de la photographie Genève is bringing together Geneva-based artists Yvan Alvarez and Bernard Tullen for the first time on the occasion of the 14th edition of Art Genève, with a selection of works largely exhibited for the first time.

For (Hi)stories, a very large body of work comprising several hundred pieces, Bernard Tullen enlarges and reproduces, using oil on canvas or gouache on cardboard, everyday images, generally taken from the mass media, which evoke consumer society, surveillance or singular episodes in history. Produced in deliberately muted and monochromatic tones, they are then washed by the artist, giving them a unique texture and a ghostly, disturbing presence. Hazy and evanescent, these photographic images of current events become spectres of a Western visual culture in which images circulate widely but disappear quickly, leaving a diffuse yet indelible mark on our collective memory.

The unstable and transitory nature of images, and yet what they retain as immutable, also runs through the works of Yvan Alvarez presented here. Seemingly mundane photographs, taken in the street with a mobile phone, focus on micro-gestures, slow or discreet interactions, and are treated as clues that reveal our relationship with our environment: a rear-view mirror repaired with gaffer tape, a tree slowly lifting concrete blocks, grass worn down by footsteps outside the marked paths. An almost forensic approach, supported by the preservation of the images, cast in resin and encased in prefabricated, industrial and domestic elements.

This presentation is a preview of the group exhibition The Shudder Palace, which will take place at Le Commun in June and July 2026.

Find the complete programme of Art Genève 2026 on the fair’s website.