The MEP presents the first solo exhibition in France of Tyler Mitchell, a leading figure of the new generation of American photographers, from October 15, 2025, to January 25, 2026. Entitled Wish This Was Real, the exhibition explores his favorite themes: self-determination and the extraordinary beauty of everyday life.
The work of American photographer Tyler Mitchell unfolds as an ode to self-determination, dignity, and the beauty of everyday life. Since his rise in the fashion world, Mitchell has developed a sensitive visual language, subtly blending portraiture, landscape, and utopian narrative.
Rather than revisiting historical narratives, he imagines alternative worlds: luminous, colorful, and vibrant scenes, where Black individuals appear in all their humanity. These images make representation a gesture of reappropriation, a poetic and committed act that celebrates a joyful and free Black utopia, where everyone can exist fully, beyond assignments.
The exhibition is structured around three major themes drawn from Tyler Mitchell’s photographic practice. “Lives / Freedoms” reveals his early influences—particularly skateboard culture in images imbued with joy, camaraderie, and a quest for self, in tension with a fragile social context. The video “Wish This Was Real” (2015) offers a poetic meditation on innocence confronted to American political realities.
“Postcolonial / Pastoral” summons dreams and memories in lush and symbolic landscapes. Finally, “Family / Brotherhood” celebrates the resilience of Black communities through intimate portraits, still lifes, and scenes of home, conceived as a sanctuary and a place of collective reinvention.
True to a rigorous aesthetic, Mitchell composes each image with great precision: bold colors, calm gestures, and meticulous staging. His work interacts with classical painting, fashion photography, and studio portraiture, while conveying a profoundly contemporary sensibility. For him, gentleness becomes a lever of resistance, a means of reclaiming the image and asserting a dignified, autonomous, and radiant identity.
The exhibition Tyler Mitchell — Wish This Was Real is curated by Brendan Embser and Sophia Greiff, in collaboration with Clothilde Morette, MEP Artistic Director and Curator. This exhibition is organized and produced by the C/O Berlin Foundation in collaboration with Tyler Mitchell Studios and made possible with the support of the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne.
Tyler Mitchell is an American artist, photographer, and filmmaker, born in 1995 in Atlanta. He lives and works in Brooklyn.
Tyler Mitchell : Wish This Was Real
October 15, 2025 ‒ January 25, 2026
MEP
5/7 Rue de Fourcy
75004 Paris, France
www.mep-fr.org
