From the 1960s to the present, these 90 pictures look back on the 40-year career of a photographer who has travelled across the US, Europe and Japan in search of unusual, moving and amusing pictures.
But is this really a retrospective? Richard Kalvar has refused the chronological approach, choosing to ignore dates and place names in order to twist the thread that might link these spontaneously captured everyday scenes in which ordinary people become unwitting actors in the strangest scenarios.
With this timelessness comes a high level of aesthetic and thematic consistency. Skilful framing and the choice of just the right moment effectively create interplay between the apparent banality of a situation and a pervading impression of strangeness, the image constantly shifting between several levels of interpretation.
Shot through with ambiguity and dark humour, these deceptively classical photographs provide a singular means of engaging with reality.
La Louvière, Belgique, 1979
