Image: Photo Elysée, Lausanne ; Hannah Reyes Morales
Photo Elysée in Lausanne is showing 'Inferno & Paradiso', an exhibition by Alfredo Jaar that runs from 26 June to 1 November 2026. The museum describes the project as an immersive slide-projection installation that places viewers at its centre, bringing together 40 photographs by 20 photojournalists selected by Jaar from their archives. Each contributor chose one image that represented the most painful moment of their career and one that conveyed hope, creating a structure built around contrast rather than chronology or theme alone.
The exhibition is presented at Photo Elysée, the museum for photography at Plateforme 10 in Lausanne, and is listed by the institution as a current exhibition. According to the museum, the work was originally developed for the international photography festival Cortona On The Move and was presented in Cortona in 2025. Photo Elysée says the Lausanne presentation is a co-production with the cultural association On The Move for the festival, with curators Paolo Woods and Kublaiklan credited on the exhibition page.
Jaar’s project draws on his long-standing interest in the social and political force of images. The museum describes him as one of the most socially engaged artists of our time, and says the exhibition uses twenty simultaneous projections in a darkened room, each projecting an image associated with either 'inferno' or 'paradiso'. The sequences change every twenty minutes, alternating the visitor’s experience between the two registers and framing the photographs as part of a shifting visual environment rather than as isolated works.
The exhibition text links the project to a wide geographic range, citing photographs from Ukraine, Argentina, Gaza, New York, Congo and the Philippines. Photo Elysée presents this span as part of Jaar’s attempt to show both the crises that traverse contemporary society and the moments of joy and relief that exist alongside them. The museum’s text also states that the installation asks viewers to reflect on emotional responses to images of suffering and happiness, and on the continued power of photography in an image-saturated world.
The exhibition page situates 'Inferno & Paradiso' within Jaar’s wider multidisciplinary practice, which the museum says addresses power imbalances and sociopolitical fractures produced by globalization and capitalism. Born in 1956, Jaar is identified by Photo Elysée as a Chilean artist, architect and filmmaker who now lives and works in Lisbon after more than 40 years in New York. The museum notes that his work has been shown at the Venice Biennale, Documenta and the Rencontres d’Arles, and that he is a recipient of the Hasselblad Award, the Albert Camus Prize of the Mediterranean and the Pictet Prize.
Photo Elysée also notes that the exhibition is accompanied by the publication 'Inferno & Paradiso' from L'Artiere. A brochure and educational materials are available through the museum, and the exhibition page includes a warning that some works may be disturbing to visitors. The museum lists regular opening hours at its Lausanne address, Place de la Gare 17, and says the exhibition remains on view through 1 November 2026.
