Plongées, fragments, répliques

Exhibition from September 28th to December 21st 2025.

Opening on Saturday, September 27th 2025. Free shuttle from Paris (reservation required).

 

For its reopening, the CPIF presents a solo exhibition of Isabelle Giovacchini, from September 28th to December 21st 2025.

Plongées, fragments, répliques is Isabelle Giovacchini’s first solo show in an art centre and the fruit of a long period of investigation, manipulation and experimentation. Giovacchini explored image collections and collected found images, transforming these images to reveal new, previously invisible layers of meaning.

If historical images are the most common raw materials in her body of work, Giovacchini should not be seen as a researcher. Indeed, her approach is more a pastiche of archaeological explorations, one that provides a new take on the supposed historical veracity of archival documents. By meticulously selecting, scanning, cropping and reframing images, as well as creating both replicas and fakes, she redirects our gaze, revealing hidden details that give rise to fresh possibilities for our imagination to explore.

Far from fixing her attention on the subject, Giovacchini sets out to reveal the defects present in the reference image, focussing on its materiality and rugosity. For her, the scratches on the surface of a daguerreotype (Les Métamorphoses) or the reflection of a lamp used to illuminate an image (Études d’un culte) are chance accidents that must be put in the spotlight, as if to disrupt any dreams of glory conveyed by the official narrative. 

The exhibition presents an inventory of the artist’s most recent researches. It is accompanied by a publication entitled Nemi, about her work around Lake Nemi near Rome, a place where stories from antiquity and present-day narratives come together.

Shuttle reservation : contact@cpif.net

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For many years, Isabelle Giovacchini has been conducting experimental and empirical work with photography. She borrows the lexical field of this medium (imprint, fragment, double, spectrum) to divert it from its purely figurative and representative functions.

Her works are derived from objects and photographs found over time, in the archives and places she explores. By manipulating them in her studio or laboratory, she attempts to find the boundary point that lies just before their image disappears.

She has notably exhibited at Frac Sud (2007), Occitanie-Montpellier (2008 and 2022), at the Espace de l’Art Concret (Mouans-Sartoux, 2013), at Mamac (2013 and 2015, Nice), at the CCC (2013, Tours) at the CPIF (2015 and 2020), as well as in galleries: Xippas (2010), Isabelle Gounod (2011), Espace à vendre (2012), Les Filles du Calvaire (2013), In situ (2014 and 2020).

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Isabelle Giovacchini and the Centre Photographique d’Île-de-France would like to thank the Centre national des arts plastique and the Frac Sud (Marseille).

The exhibition Plongées, fragments, répliques benefited from the support of the ministère de la Culture - DRAC Île-de-France (Capsule program) and of Région Île-de-France (2022-2023 « Artistes en résidence » – bourse programme).

It also benefited from the support of the Fondatoin de France, the Villa Médicis, the Museo Leonardo da Vinci (Milan), the Amis du NMWA, the French Institute and Fujifilm France.

The coproduction of the exhibition along with Centre d’art Le Lait (Albi) and the coproduction of the book nemi along with Poursuites Editions benefited from the support of DRAC Île-de-France - ministère de la Culture through the the programme « Mieux produire, mieux diffuser ».

Image : Isabelle Giovacchini, Les Métamorphoses, 2023-2024, © Paris, Adagp, 2025, courtesy of the artist