Galerie L’ANGLE presents “Enfin la plage !”, an exhibition by Claude Nori.
Claude Nori has been photographing beach life tirelessly since the 1970s — an activity that rekindles the flame of his adolescence with its warm light, the particular sounds and music of summer, the heat that invites bodies to shed their clothes and their inhibitions, freed from the constraints of everyday life. The beach, the architecture, the places that evoke for him scenes from neorealist films steeped in poetry and melancholy, frequently bring him back to his childhood on the Italian shores with his parents. Having settled for more than twenty years on the Atlantic coast of which he has invented a kind of metaphysics he extends, through black-and-white and colour images, a poetry that does not refuse the real and blurs all boundaries.
The photographs by Claude Nori brought together at L’ANGLE in the exhibition “Enfin la plage !” come from different places and different periods in the photographer’s life. They breathe freedom — that intoxicating sensation of days stretching out to infinity, as if childhood, with its simple joys and boundless dreams, had reclaimed its rights. Here, laughter mingles with the sound of waves, and the sun caresses relaxed bodies, forgetting for a moment all clocks and calendars.
“Enfin la plage !” is an ode to those suspended moments when time seems to stand still. The images, at once iconic and universal, imprint themselves on the memory like timeless snapshots: the scenes that unfold, at once familiar and poetic, become the symbols of an ageless freedom — fragments of pure happiness, etched forever into the collective imagination.
The exhibition celebrates the photographer’s ability to transport us into a magical moment where anything is possible, where happiness is measured by the abundance of golden light, and where we remember, with nostalgia and tenderness, that true wealth is the time that is freely given to us, without limit.
— Didier Mandart, L’ANGLE
Claude Nori, of Italian origin, born in 1949 in Toulouse, has been photographing since 1967 and published his first book prefaced by Agnès Varda Lunettes, at Editions Contrejour, which he founded for the occasion. Since then, he has pursued his work as an author through a succession of books and exhibitions centred on adolescence, beach poetry, Italy and “photobiography”. He has published numerous books, including Vacances en Italie, La Géométrie du flirt, Jours heureux au Pays basque and two novels: Une fille instantanée and Un photographe amoureux, as well as Histoire de la photographie française. His most recent book, Biarritz Paradiso, prefaced by Erwan Desplanques, was published in 2023. He exhibits in numerous festivals and institutions in France and abroad. A retrospective at the MEP in 2012 consecrated his work as a photographer and publisher. In 1999, he settled in Biarritz with Isabelle Nori to create the Terre d’images festival and to further develop the publishing house. He is represented by Galerie Polka in Paris, where he exhibits regularly.
With the kind participation of Galerie POLKA, Paris
Claude Nori : Enfin la plage !
12 June – 19 July 2026
Opening reception in the presence of the photographer, Saturday 13 June • 6:30 pm
Galerie L’ANGLE
6, rue des Citronniers
64700 Hendaye
www.langlephotos.fr
@langlephotos
