Upcoming Exhibition at Les Rencontres d’Arles

Animal Model: 200 Years of Photography
Curated by Nathalie Herschdorfer
La Mécanique Générale (Fondation LUMA)
6 July – 4 October 2026

Karen Knorr is delighted to share that three works from her series Scavi (2023–2024) will be on view in the upcoming group exhibition at Les Rencontres d’Arles at La Mécanique Général (Fondation LUMA) in Arles, France. Animal Model: 200 Years of Photography will then travel to Photo Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland, opening 4 December 2026 – 4 April 2027.

Companion, research subject, symbol, mirror, or fantasy, animals have never left the photographers’ frame since the invention of the medium. Animal Model offers an immersion into two centuries of images that reveal how photography has shaped our view of animals and profoundly influenced the ways we love, exploit, or defend them. Bringing together works by renowned artists as well as anonymous photographs, the exhibition leads us on a thematic journey built around six perspectives: the anatomical gaze that observes and analyses; the performative gaze, capturing our fascination with animals; the emotional gaze, centered on our domestic companions; the fascinated gaze, celebrating the beauty of the animal world; the ethical gaze, exposing animal exploitation; and finally the viral gaze that subverts and spreads, blurring the lines between reality and fiction.

From Auguste Bertsch’s 19th-century microphotographs, to Elliott Erwitt and Martin Parr’s images revealing human-animal complicity, from Peter Beard’s collages blending personal narrative and ecological concerns to Rinko Kawauchi’s delicate observations, from Simona Kossak’s pursuit of harmony to William Wegman’s playful compositions, the exhibition showcases the work of major photographers who have shaped our sensitivity to living beings. It also embraces the most inventive contemporary approaches, from the strange creatures of Augustin Rebetez and Robin Lopvet to the poetic visions of Vasantha Yogananthan, as well as the viral images and daring experimentations circulating on social media. Finally, it highlights the overwhelming presence of animals in the collective imagination. Together, these representations form a visual panorama of exceptional diversity, inviting us to rethink the boundaries between human and animal, gaze and image, and reality and its representation.