The new solo exhibition at Galerie Miranda by Nancy Wilson-Pajic (born 1941), Object, shadow, text; presents works taken from the artist’s personal archives, in order to shed light on early and lesser-known pieces and to underline the diversity of the research and processes explored throughout her career in France and internationally.
For more than fifty years, Nancy Wilson-Pajic (born 1941, French-American) has been exploring the essential functions of the photographic medium as well as the role of art and of the artist in society. On the occasion of her new solo exhibition, Galerie Miranda is presenting a group of works drawn from the artist’s personal archives, with a focus on early and overlooked pieces. This selection highlights the diversity of her investigations and the richness of the processes she has experimented with throughout her career—from the first feminist expressions of the 1970s to her pioneering explorations of traditional photographic processes in the 1980s and 1990s.
Nancy Wilson-Pajic first turned to photography in order to document her works—performances, ephemeral installations and in situ interventions. From the 1980s onward, she began to question the way in which a photographic image imposes itself on our gaze: what makes a photograph become a work of art? She then experimented with alternative printing processes and so-called “poor” materials—Xerox copies, plastic, paper, paint.
She next embarked on an extensive exploration of the photogram, approaching this historical photographic form as a trace, through the singular relationship it establishes between the object and its imprint, through the shadow it leaves behind. Out of this research came a major, poetic body of work: large cyanotypes of disembodied textiles—haute couture dresses (Christian Dior, Alexander McQueen, Christian Lacroix), antique lace, stage costumes as well as everyday objects.
The exhibition brings together several emblematic conceptual series, among them:
Perfect Shade of Gray (1978–1979), a series of eight works combining photography and painting, an “anti-aesthetic” project embodying the artist’s early questioning of the position of the author and the representative function of photography;
Drifter (1983–1987), a group of large-format gum-bichromate prints combining text and image, based on photographs taken with a rudimentary camera from a car on the motorways of suburban Paris; large-format cyanotype photograms from the series Falling Angels (1995–1997) and Les Divas (2004); as well as several unique self-portraits from the 1970s.
Ombre, “shadow” in English, the title of the exhibition, refers to the experimental camera-less photography of the 1920s developed by Christian Schad (1894–1982), which Tristan Tzara described as schadographes: “small compositions of torn paper, newspaper and fabric… arranged on sheets of photographic paper, pressed under glass, and exposed to the light on the balcony… the traces of the small debris of everyday life.”
Miranda Salt
Nancy Wilson-Pajic : Object, shadow, text
Until 3 January 2026
Galerie Miranda
21 rue du Château d’Eau
75010 Paris
+33 1 40 38 36 53 / Cell: +33 663 08 6634
www.galeriemiranda.com
Wednesday–Saturday 14:00–19:00 or by appointment
