Located in the heart of the University City of Madrid, the Casa de Velázquez, a French institution inaugurated in 1928, was created to host artists and researchers in residence.

During his residency at the Casa de Velázquez between 1993 and 1994, photographer Max Armengaud focused his gaze and his lens on the place and its inhabitants.
Thirty years later, between 2023 and 2024, he returned for a new series of photographs, following the same protocol. The portrait of the institution is a portrait of those who live and work there. Everyone is represented: the staff, the management, the residents, and the scholarship recipients… The photographer captures the intimate connections that are forged between the space and those who inhabit it.
To fully capture the spirit of the place, the artist meticulously explored the various spaces of the Casa: interiors and exteriors, public and private, from the most visible to the most secluded. Each subject is given equal weight. A strong sense of unity emerges, affirming the institution’s enduring presence. The portraits, exclusively in black and white, alternate with photographs of the premises, the most recent of which are in color, a medium that has only appeared in Max’s work for about fifteen years.

Pop’Africa retraces forty years of travels across the African continent. Myriam Viallefont-Haas has always taken an artistic and committed look at a rich and complex Africa. That of refugees in Somalia, that of the struggle for independence in Namibia, that of the daily life of the Maasai people and the protection of the Maasai Mara in Kenya. This desert Africa, mysterious, traditional, but also modern, vibrant, and independent, which she renews our view of thanks to her eye as a photographer and artist in these painted photographs. Her works are like windows opening onto Africa, where each color and each texture tells of the challenges and beauty of this continent. Her photographs, paintings, and painted photos merge in her creative universe, where she combines the brush with the lens. “When I take a photo, I see a painting,” explains the artist, who loves photography for its speed, and painting for its slowness and meditative nature…

Rio Praia, one of two volumes in a diptych dedicated to Rio (the second being Rio Centro), focuses on these endless stretches of sand, from Copacabana, the most popular, to Prainha, a surfer’s paradise away from the city. The beaches in Rio are a veritable agora where people party and play sports, where everything mixes and mingles in a welcoming atmosphere. They are a true social melting pot where everyone comes together: the bourgeoisie of Leblon, the kids from the favelas, municipal employees, couples sipping coconut juice at the end of a day’s work…Rio lends itself well to Jean-Christophe Béchet’s photographic writing, in which the documentary spirit escapes into a form of poetry.

Rio Centro, one of two volumes in a diptych dedicated to Rio (the second being Rio Praia), is a subjective, intimate portrait of the heart of the city, as lively during the day as it is deserted and dangerous at night, when the offices are closed.
Nearby are the neighborhoods of Santa Teresa, Lapa, Botafogo, Flamengo, Gávea… places where street photography is the perfect tool for capturing a dark and contrasting world. Rio lends itself well to Jean-Christophe Béchet’s photographic writing, in which the documentary spirit escapes into a form of cinematic poetry that leaves reality in suspension…

Michel Campeau is one of those photographers who, in addition to creating their own images, have always been passionate about so-called “vernacular” photography, whether anonymous or family-based. He belongs to a generation of photographers that includes Martin Parr, Erik Kessel, Joachim Schmidt, and others, who, through their focus on these neglected images, have created a genre in their own right… For many years, Michel Campeau has been scouring the vastness of globalized image production for amateur and professional photographic prints to feed the various collections he has established.
Thus, darkrooms, which could be considered a kind of original cave of photography, have always been one of his most important collectibles, certainly because they help to reflect his own image, the self-portrait of a creator whose gaze was forged by the silver-based photography that appeared in the darkness of the darkroom, full of magic and substance, which the transition to digital photography has driven away.
From the hundreds of images he has collected, Michel Campeau has created a veritable encyclopedia in Gestes et rituels de la chambre noire (Gestures and Rituals of the Darkroom), spanning more than a century of photography, organized by theme, deconstructing the components of the darkroom: the enlarger, the timers, the lamps, the retouching, the traveling photographers…
The book masterfully plays with a montage of images and is interspersed with texts by the artist.

Nestled in the heart of the French Vexin park, the Villarceaux regional estate invites visitors to stroll and daydream. Listed as a historic monument, this little-known gem is home to a unique collection of buildings dating from the 14th to the 19th centuries, and seventy hectares of exceptionally rich gardens, labeled as a Remarkable Garden.

Marie-France Hirigoyen est psychiatre et psychothérapeute spécialisée en thérapie
familiale. Elle a publié entre autre, Le Harcèlement moral : la violence perverse
au quotidien (Syros) et Séparations avec enfants : Conflits, violences, manipulations
(La Découverte).

Irène Théry est sociologue, directrice d’études à l’EHESS (au Centre Norbert-Elias,
à Marseille) et spécialiste du droit de la famille et de la vie privée. Parmi ses nombreuses
publications : Mariage et filiation pour tous : Une métamorphose inachevée (éditions
du Seuil) et Recomposer une famille : Des rôles et des sentiments (éditions Textuel).

Bruno Humbeeck est psychopédagogue et directeur de recherche au sein
du service des Sciences de la famille de l’Université de Mons. Il est l’auteur, entre autre,
de Les ressources de la résilience (PUF), Pour un finir avec le harcèlement scolaire
(Odile Jacob) et de Comment préserver les enfants lors d’une séparation (Mango).

Depuis bientôt quarante ans, Max Armengaud photographie des institutions. Parmi lesquelles l’Opéra de Paris, la Cité du Vatican, le château de Prague et la Casa de Velázquez, représentées grâce aux
personnes qui les habitent et les traversent. Son travail est porté par deux notions centrales : la permanence et la disparition. Il est l’auteur du livre Antichambre, publié en 2015 aux éditions Analogues, éditions pour l’art contemporain. Il a été professeur d’enseignement artistique à l’École
supérieure des beaux-arts de Marseille de 1999 à 2024.