Bernard Guillot at Paris Photo 2025 - Booth C54

City of the Dead / Cité des Morts (1977–2017), constitutes a significant body of photographic work by Bernard Guillot, the result of four decades of sustained engagement with a historic district of Cairo. This area—recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site—is often referred to as a living necropolis, where domestic life unfolds amidst tombs and mausoleums, blurring the boundaries between habitation and memorialization.

The series brings together vintage silver gelatin prints, several of which are being exhibited and offered for the first time. Through his masterful use of light and shadow, Guillot transforms documentary observation into a poetic vision. Long exposures and hand-painted surfaces lend the works a dreamlike quality, dissolving the line between the real and the imagined.

For Guillot, the City of the Dead / Cité des Morts was inseparable from his earliest memories of Cairo and his deep love for the city. The necropolis acted as a mirror to the living city, and his connection to the place was so compelling that he felt a personal duty to be there and to work within it.

As he moved through its labyrinthine passages and encountered its residents—both living and spectral—the city opened itself to him, inviting an engagement that was both spiritual and tangible. Guillot described his role as:

"I became like an anonymous priest of this place, working with my camera to reveal the relationship between the dead and the living—a place beyond the mirror, a testimony to the site, to myself, and to time."

All prints are silver gelatin, printed by the artist and come with a certificate of authenticity.

Dimensions are for framed works.

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