La Fab. presents humanité (humanity), in the agnès b. collection, exploring the human condition through committed perspectives.

The exhibition humanité, drawn from the agnès b. Collection, will run from November 20, 2025, to March 22, 2026. This exhibition promises an artistic and sensitive journey, bringing together iconic works by engaged photographers and artists.

The exhibition's title, humanité, echoes a deep and nuanced exploration of the human condition. It is an immersion into what defines us collectively and individually: our emotions, our social connections, our memories, our identities, and our daily lives, viewed through the prism of unique perspectives. Humanity is also, and intrinsically, our capacity to love, to form deep bonds, and to share intimacies.

Portraits and self-portraits: views of self, views of the other

The exhibition brings together numerous works focused on the representation of the individual, capturing interiority or self-affirmation.

Visitors will be able to discover the striking portraits of Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé, whose timeless shots capture the elegance, dignity, and daily life in Mali. Autoportrait, 1983 (Self-Portrait, 1983) by Jean-Michel Basquiat, a vibrant and impactful work, shows the artist with a raw intensity. This sketched, almost totemic face embodies at once the quest for identity, the assertion of an African-American heritage, and the affirmation of a place in art history, at the heart of a world still dominated by Eurocentric narratives. This act of self-representation becomes an act of resistance and reappropriation.

Mona Hatoum's work, Keffieh, 1993–1999, will also be presented, utilizing a traditional keffiyeh embroidered with human hair. This piece shifts the political emblem of Palestinian resistance towards an intimate dimension, questioning identity, exile, and the body in a gesture that is both delicate and unsettling.

The Group, Society, the Collective Scene

Certain works address the human in its communal or social forms, highlighting group dynamics, collective representations, and shared spaces. The works of Gilbert & George, such as Commercial Street or Phone, question coexistence, the image of the fused couple, and social norms with irony and visual intensity. Martin Parr's shots offer a sharp and often satirical observation of contemporary daily life, with its crowds, routines, and excesses.

Massimo Vitali's photographs, which capture beaches or public places from a distance, compose teeming, almost cartographic human scenes, where each individual seems both unique and absorbed in a crowd.

Love and Interpersonal Bonds

The exhibition particularly highlights the representation of love, the couple, and the diverse forms of emotional relationships.

The print Ray and Liz by Richard Billingham offers an intimate and uncompromising look at a couple from a working-class environment, where love is intertwined with the brutality of daily life. The drawing it's About Queers in Love with Thei by Jared Buckhiester explores the diversity of queer love expressions, in a free and sensitive graphic gesture. Other works from the collection, such as Sans titre (couple) (Untitled (couple)) or Le Couple allongé (The Reclining Couple) by Seydou Keïta, illustrate the richness of representations of life as a couple, in its simplest and most universal forms.

Invented humanities: imaginary figures, myths, and hybridizations

Another strong focus of the exhibition lies in the way certain artists reinvent or project a new humanity, through experimental or poetic visual languages.

La Petite Sirène (The Little Mermaid) by Adrien Beau, made of wire, resin, wadding, shagreen, and lamb leather, offers a contemporary and unsettling vision of a hybrid mythological figure, between fantasy and anatomy. The installation Deux clans, deux familles (Two Clans, Two Families) by Annette Messager, composed of black and white photos, plastic bags, stuffed animals, wood, and earth, confronts the visitor with the notion of hierarchy and division in social and family structures. Through domestic and childlike materials, the artist evokes universal tensions. Pascal Doury's works, a mix of collages and paintings, construct a surrealist and often provocative graphic world, populated by hybrid figures and deconstructed bodily motifs.

Universal humanity, political humanity

Certain works address humanity from the angle of great political, cultural, or spiritual narratives, through a collective reading of the world.

Mappa del Mondo (Map of the World) by Alighiero e Boetti, hand-embroidered by Afghan craftswomen, offers a geopolitical reinterpretation of the world: each country is represented by its flag. Through this participatory and meticulous work, Boetti celebrates human diversity and the bonds woven between cultures and territories.

The poetic creations of Frédéric Bruly Bouabré will be highlighted, notably his series Hommage aux femmes du monde (Homage to the Women of the World) composed of 200 drawings in ballpoint pen and colored pencil. In it, he celebrates the richness of feminine humanity and forgotten narratives. Other works like L'humanité se fraternise autour d’un même plat de riz ! Ainsi Dieu le veut ! (Humanity is brought together around a single dish of rice! Thus God wills it!) or Humanisation d'une table à manger en jouet collection F.B.B. (Humanization of a toy dining table F.B.B. collection), reinforce his vision of a humanist, fraternal, and sacred world.

Finally, the committed works of Chéri Samba, colorful and narrative, will address social injustices and political contradictions with humor, lucidity, and critical spirit. humanité promises to be a rich and diverse exhibition, inviting every visitor to connect with the visual narratives and shared emotions conveyed through these remarkable works.