PARIS.- The MEP is presenting the first solo exhibition in France by Tyler Mitchell, a leading figure in his generation of contemporary photography, until 25 January 2026. Entitled Wish This Was Real, the exhibition explores the artist's major themes: self-determination and the extraordinary beauty embedded in everyday life.
Mitchell is driven by dreams of paradise against the backdrop of history. His images propel a visual narrative of beauty, style, utopia, and the landscape that expands visions of Black life and shows how portraiture can be rooted in the past while evoking imagined futures. Wish This Was Real covers ten years of Mitchell’s dynamic artistic practice in photography, video, and sculpture, demonstrating the influence of the “New Black Vanguard” – the proliferation of images by Black photographers who work across genres of fashion and art. From portraits made in the United States, Europe, and West Africa to his latest prints on fabric and mirrors, he traces photography’s vital role in shaping a visual realm in which refuge and repose are central.
Wish This Was Real considers Mitchell’s work in three thematic sections that follow his artistic evolution. In “Lives/Liberties,” his early influences and immersion in skateboarding culture are reflected in images that pursue a dream of leisure, community, and self-expression amid societal unrest, including an early video, Wish This Was Real (2015), a startling and atmospheric reflection on innocence and political turmoil in contemporary America.
In “Postcolonial/Pastoral,” reveries of paradise are underscored by the complexities of history and social identity, as Mitchell stages elaborate scenes in nature that invite contemplation through vibrant landscapes and symbolic references. “Family/Fraternity” celebrates the resilience and heritage of Black communities through intimate family portraits and still lifes, portraying the home as a sanctuary.
The exhibition Tyler Mitchell — Wish This Was Real is curated by Brendan Embser and Sophia Greiff, in collaboration with Clothilde Morette, curator and artistic director of the MEP. This exhibition is organised 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.
After studying film at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, from which he graduated in 2017, he turned to photography. In 2018, he produced a series of portraits of the singer Beyoncé for the September issue of American Vogue—the most important edition of the year. At just 23 years old, he made history by becoming the first Black photographer to shoot the magazine’s cover. Tyler Mitchell has developed numerous collaborations within the fashion world, where he has created his own visual language, a blend of gentleness and wonder, that also permeates his artistic work.
His works are part of many private and public collections, including the High Museum of Art (Atlanta, Georgia), the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Detroit Institute of Arts, FOAM Fotografiemuseum (Amsterdam), the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College (Annandale-on- Hudson, New York), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Pizzuti Collection at the Columbus Museum of Art, the National Portrait Gallery (Washington DC), and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Following showings in Berlin at C/O Berlin, in Helsinki at the Finnish Museum of Photography, and in Lausanne at the Photo Elysée Museum, the exhibition Wish This Was Real is now on view in Paris, at the MEP.
