Karen Knorr Inhabits the Castle
Château d’Azay-le-Rideau

No Future by Karen Knorr and Olivier Richon
Château d’Oiron

13 June – 1 November 2026
(Press Opening: 26 June 2026)

In celebration of the bicentenary of photography, Karen Knorr Inhabits the Castle, opens 13 June – 1 November 2026 (press opening 26 June) at Château d’Azay-le-Rideau. Featuring around fifty photographs, the retrospective is curated by Claude d’Anthenaise and supported by Les Filles du Calvaire. Also on view at the same time will be No Future, an exhibition of Karen Knorr and Olivier Richon’s series Punks (1977) at Château d’Oiron.

By moving into the Château d’Azay-le-Rideau, Karen Knorr continues her investigation into the habitat/inhabitant relationship. At Azay, most visitors are drawn by the architectural richness, but they also seek a bygone way of life. To this end, the arrangement of furniture and collections satisfies the public’s quest by helping them imagine daily life as it once was. Knorr joins this process. She does not come to disrupt the established order but rather, through a play of resonances, to make it easier to read. As an ephemeral “lady of the manor,” she adds her own objects and personal universe to the site’s memory without taking anything away. Thus, within the dense fabric of works and furniture already present, she weaves in pieces from forty years of work.

Located in Oiron, in the Deux-Sèvres département of western France, Château d’Oiron is a majestic Renaissance buildingconstructed from the 16th century onwards by Claude Gouffier, Grand Equerry to King Henry II. On view will be works from Karen Knorr and Olivier Richon’s Punks series. From 1976 to 1977, Karen Knorr and Olivier Richon documented the London punk scene revolving around the Roxy in Covent Garden and the Global Village in Charing Cross. The first prints from the series were originally presented at The Photographers’ Gallery in 1978, and featured many years later, in 2012, at Tate Britain in the retrospective titled Another London.