Explore the relationship between Artists and Mothers at the BAL

#PHOTO LE BAL presents an exhibition dedicated to 25 artists' views of their mothers. The selected body of work, spanning the 1960s to the present day, includes works by Sophie Calle, Christian Boltanski, Michel Journiac and Anri Sala.... Going beyond the pure testimony of an inevitably singular intimate relationship, these works are constructed from formal and conceptual devices involving the body, figure or character of the mother in the creative process.

The mother, whose gaze is undoubtedly the first mirror of both the self and the world around us, remains one of the fundamental motifs in the history of art. The works presented here all have in common that they go beyond mere intimate testimony. Whether they embody the reality of presence or the effects of absence, they all involve the question of filiation and what remains of it.