LUCID

Renowned Swiss director and photographer Damien Krisl—celebrated for his high-fashion digital virtuosity and visionary campaigns for luxury powerhouses like Dior, YSL, and Bulgari—makes a radical return to material immediacy with LUCID. Hosted at Paris’s Ellia Art Gallery from July 2nd to July 4th, 2026, this highly anticipated exhibition and accompanying book launch offer a deeply intimate look into a practice entirely liberated from commercial commissions. Stepping away from the polished digital realm, Krisl showcases a raw, striking collection of un-reworked, life-sized Polaroids captured between 2018 and 2023. The project stands as a defiant bulwark against the rise of algorithmic AI and ephemeral imagery, using the unpredictable chemistry of analog film to anchor each artwork to a lived, unrepeatable human experience.

Influenced by the bold, organic contours and highly saturated 1970s retro-futurism of designer Verner Panton, the collection unfolds along a vivid chromatic chronology that mirrors the iconic Polaroid rainbow stripe. Completely stripped of digital post-production, the imagery proudly embraces its chemical flaws, transmuting dust motes and washed-out colors into psychedelic, interstellar topographies that reflect chapters of the artist's own past. Accompanied by a strictly limited-edition release of 500 fine art books, LUCID marks a poignant, eco-conscious farewell to the medium—serving as Krisl’s definitive final Polaroid cycle and a poetic swan song to a handcrafted, tactile labor of love. The public is invited to experience this singular encounter following the opening night vernissage on July 2nd.