LOVE Exhibition in Paris: Recap and Press
LOVE Exhibition in Paris: Recap and Press
Art-Icon | Bastille Design Center | Paris
May 26-28, 2026
Following the selection of my photograph First Gesture for LOVE: An Anthropology of Simulated Affect, the exhibition took place in Paris from May 26-28, 2026, at the historic Bastille Design Center.
Presented by Art-Icon, the exhibition brought together photography, video, multimedia installation, and contemporary visual art to examine how love is represented, repeated, performed, and transformed in contemporary culture.
First Gesture
First Gesture, 2026, depicts a sister kissing her newborn brother, a small and instinctive act of tenderness. Within the broader context of the exhibition, the photograph offered a quieter perspective on its central questions: love expressed through an immediate, familial gesture rather than through spectacle or performance.
Exhibition Context
LOVE: An Anthropology of Simulated Affect explored the ways visual culture shapes how intimacy, tenderness, desire, vulnerability, and emotional connection are seen and understood.
The exhibition asked whether contemporary emotions are experienced directly or increasingly shaped through images and gestures already familiar to us through cinema, advertising, social media, art history, and popular culture. This idea of "simulated affect" considers emotion not only as an internal experience, but also as something culturally learned, repeated, and visually represented.
Curated by Danilo Tkačenko and Slavica Veselinović, the exhibition included works by internationally recognized artists including ORLAN, Marina Abramović, Ai Weiwei, and Roger Ballen, together with a selection of established and emerging international artists. Vogue Adria
Press Coverage
Vogue Adria
The exhibition was featured by Vogue Adria in Tara Đukić's article, "Orlan, Marina Abramović, Ai Weiwei and Roger Ballen lead a major exhibition on love in Paris," published May 25, 2026.
The article examined the exhibition's central question of whether emotions in contemporary culture remain entirely our own, or whether the ways we experience and recognize them are increasingly shaped by images and gestures we have already encountered.
Within that context, First Gesture presents one of the oldest and most recognizable expressions of affection: the kiss. The photograph reduces that gesture to an intimate family moment, emphasizing tenderness, connection, and the beginnings of a relationship.
The Venue
The exhibition was held at the Bastille Design Center at 74 Boulevard Richard-Lenoir in Paris.
Built in 1867, the building originally housed a hardware business serving Paris's expanding industrial and construction trades. Its preserved brickwork, timber structure, metal elements, and expansive glass roof retain much of that industrial character while the building now serves as a setting for exhibitions, fashion, performance, and cultural events.
The historic architecture provided a distinctive setting for LOVE, placing contemporary photography and visual art within a space where the material history of nineteenth-century Paris remains visible.
Installation view, LOVE: An Anthropology of Simulated Affect, Bastille Design Center, Paris, 2026.
Exhibition Details
Exhibition: LOVE: An Anthropology of Simulated Affect
Organizer: Art-Icon
Curators: Danilo Tkačenko and Slavica Veselinović
Venue: Bastille Design Center
Location: Paris, France
Dates: May 26-28, 2026
Selected Work: First Gesture, 2026
Artist: Nicol Hockett