Hélène Fauquet: Vivresse — bubbles, shells and photography at Lafayette Anticipations

Hélène Fauquet presents Vivresse, a photography and sculpture exhibition on the top floor of Lafayette Anticipations in Paris, running from October 21, 2026 to January 3, 2027. Straddling the line between image and object, her work questions perception, materiality, and the transformation of forms — a visit that invites viewers to see the surroundings and their motifs in a new light.

Lafayette Anticipations is dedicating an exhibition to the French artist Hélène Fauquet with Vivresse, unveiled on the top floor of the Paris-based foundation from October 21, 2026 to January 3, 2027. Blending photography and sculpture, this first institutional show in France devoted to the artist offers a journey focused on perception, the transformation of images, and the materiality of objects. An inquiry that looks as much at the surfaces of things as at the mechanisms behind their appearance.

A contraction of "life" and "intoxication," the title—according to Lafayette Anticipations—suggests a state where vital energy and desire converge. Hélène Fauquet's work links ornamental forms with a conceptual reflection that sits at the edge of surrealism. Her recent research also probes the connections between décor and art, nature and artificiality, and past and present. For several years, the artist has been developing a body of work around the seashell, used as a three-dimensional object that masks a portion of her own photographs.

The sculptures on display take the form of frame-objects whose function goes beyond a simple display support. The seashell becomes a central element, at once motif, volume, and a tool for transforming the image. In a text devoted to this approach, Millie Dow describes shells affixed to modest frames, with the glue left exposed. These assemblages, she argues, occupy a space between natural specimen, repurposed object, and ornament.

The exhibition also revisits the artist’s recent research into photographic residues and the movement of images. During her 2023 show Phenomena, presented at the Kunsthaus Glarus in Switzerland, Hélène Fauquet focused particularly on perception and how information is preserved. In her latest projects, she investigates how visual information settles, circulates, and endures.

Since 2023, she has been developing, in particular, the bubble motif, drawing inspiration from advertising imagery as well as scientific photography and domestic knickknacks. This form, described as unstable and fluid, appears across several works as a motif that teeters between transparency, reflection, and disappearance.

Born in 1989 in Saint-Saulve and based in Paris, Hélène Fauquet graduated in 2015 from the Städelschule in Frankfurt after studies at the École supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes. Her work has been shown at numerous institutions and galleries across Europe, the United States and Japan, notably at Kunsthaus Glarus and the Tokyo Arts and Space. On the occasion of Vivresse, Lafayette Anticipations is also supporting the exhibition with a dedicated publication as well as a carte blanche project entrusted to the artist.

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Hélène Fauquet: Vivresse — bubbles, shells and photography at Lafayette Anticipations — our photos