After forty-four years, photographer Bart Verhulst meets up again with Marc Hioco, the iconic model of the Thermes. Through these unique shots, they plunge back into the past. “Some photographs really take me back,” says Marc Hioco.
For Bart Verhulst, photography is a quest for authenticity. “The best compliment I can receive is when someone says: this photograph moves me. I am looking for spontaneity, not stiff poses.” His deliberately imperfect images capture the soul of places and moments.
In 1981, Bart took up a challenge: to immortalize the former Thermes swimming pool, abandoned for years. “I wanted to capture its beauty and the very particular atmosphere that emanated from it,” he explains.
The photographs, taken in the corridors and in the pool, became testimonies of a bygone era.
Marc Hioco, then on holiday in Ostend, agreed to pose for Bart.
“We were young and open to everything. It was an unforgettable experience,” he recalls.
Today these images are etched in his memory, while Bart, who has been living in France since 1984, wants to give them a second life: “These photographs are witnesses of time. It would be a shame to let them fall into oblivion.”
b’ART — Bart Verhulst : Mémoire d’un instant suspendu
Until 4 January 2026
KLAI
14 rue Duguay-Trouin
75006 Paris
