Beauty is a universal but delicate concept, as it is difficult to define its properties.
The Jeu de Paume is hosting, until September 27, 2026, the private photographic collection of Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish. The photographs cover the 20th and 21st centuries in a free and provocative spirit, reflecting the personality of their owner.
The exhibition offers a fresh perspective on the world through the work of 90 artists and 300 images. Exclusive photographs of the singer and his husband enrich photographic culture, often segmented into various fields such as fashion, photojournalism, nature, and gastronomy. Among the featured artists, Irving Penn, master of portraiture and still life, engages in a dialogue with the melancholic photographs of Richard Avedon and Mary Ellen Mark. The exhibition explores five themes rooted in the contemporary world through a unique aesthetic that serves to address gay liberation, queer identities, desire, and fashion.
The photographic series is distinguished by its broad scope, allowing for in-depth exploration of the subjects addressed. Among the major themes revolving around this exhibition are portraits of individuals with conceptual ideas.
By tracing contemporary history, we discover a particular vision of beauty. A tangible concept, difficult to define because it depends on the subjectivity of each individual. Their participation in the creation of something that stimulates them highlights a vulnerable modesty.
Furthermore, photography possesses a fragile beauty, as this medium regularly explores a seductive yet fleeting aesthetic. Photography, which relies on spontaneity and the present moment, captures an elusive beauty. Its very indistinctness makes it fragile.
The portraits also explore the concept of desire and its more or less defined properties. Closely connected to queer artists and identifying as such themselves, Elton John and David Furnish contribute to the emancipation of discourses on desire by making identity a central theme in their work. The couple, whose daily commitment forms the starting point for this vibrant exhibition, raises an important issue related to open-mindedness and inclusion. Bodies are revealed as liberated from the oppression exerted on queer identity and homosexual rights. Faced with the hostility of the media of the time, which repressed these individuals, Sir Elton John and David Furnish highlight portraits and representations of these identities in all their sensuality.
Secondly, portraits of major film icons trace the evolution of their representation. The couple is fascinated by pioneering artists in the music and film industries who dedicated their lives to art. Previously unseen photographs of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Frank Sinatra are revealed to the public.
“Fragile Beauty” is also an exhibition that pays tribute to the photographers themselves, in addition to their work. Two of them broke free from the protocols codified by their bourgeois social class in order to capture the essence of their generation beyond the privileges they were born with. Among the featured photographers, Nan Goldin’s work stands out for its raw language. The installation offers, for the first time in France, access to the Thanksgiving collection , composed of 149 prints that trace the artist’s tumultuous life. The colors and contrast of the photographs allow viewers to feel the intensity of each captured moment. The message about transgression resonates, as its visual representation becomes a driving force, ready to give visibility to relationships that exist outside those of the dominant culture.
"Fragile Beauty" takes the form of a documentary collection presenting key images of contemporary history. Among these archives, both elusive and unique, lies a certain beauty. Social movements and the most significant events in history are made accessible in order to preserve collective memory, weakened by the systemic evolution of conventions.
Photography travels across countries and through time. Sir Elton John and David Furnish have preserved photographs that stimulate our curiosity and challenge conventions. Dedicated to circulating images in order to reinterpret history from a different perspective, the couple share a slideshow of photographs spanning from the 1960s to the 2000s. This approach reveals our obsession with beauty, however subjective it may be. The incongruity and dissonance of certain photographs define the singularity of this universal concept. The collection traces the quest for identity that we all share, as well as our relationship with desire and its often taboo representation. The photographs, both precious and creative, arise from a focus on composition and color.
"Fragile beauty"
Jeu de Paume
1, Place de la Concorde, Paris 1st
Until September 27, 2026
