LOVE. An Exhibition. Paris.

I've been to a lot of exhibitions. But I have never experienced anything quite like what Danila Tkachenko and Slavica Veselinović built at Art-Icon this past week in Paris.

LOVE was the kind of show that makes you recalibrate what photography can do in a room. What art can do in a room.

Every form of love was there — romantic, familial, self. Love was even represented through birth & death. You walked in through an entry installation that made the metaphor literal and visceral. There was a tattoo artist, Arnest Makhin, who would speak with you, then conjure a single word (his word for you, whatever you inspired in him) and tattoo it on the spot. Lindsay Elizabeth Warner was there with an entire cross-installation of portraits of her husband, Marilyn Manson. Gorgeous floral art by Tarico Anniina Stodolsky lead your eye to Lindsey’s work. Marina Abramović's work was projected on the wall. Ai Weiwei's figure sketches lined the staircase landing. The following night they hosted an evening of intimate poetry readings by Cynthia Ross and Joseph Matick. The room had a pulse.

When they invited me to contribute, they asked me specifically for an embrace. I went looking through my archive and found a favorite couple I'd photographed several times — a moment of them in a bubble bath, nuzzling noses. Strangely enough, my image in their last show, Sex & Politics, also included a few bubbles.

Most of my work with couples lives in high-voltage sexuality. This was the exhale. Lather. As in bubbles, yes. But also what you pour onto another person — attention, adoration, tenderness. The curators saw something in it and put it on their wall. That felt like such a gift.

To be included among these artists is something I'll hold for a long time. To experience the show itself — wow, that's something else entirely. I will forever be a fan of these two curators.

And then there were the artists themselves. Getting to meet them, hear the stories behind their work, feel their excitement for what's next — that was another gift. Watching women artists celebrate each other, lift each other up, share in each other's moment. What a beautiful thing to witness.

Consider me absolutely inspired!

Sometimes the universe gives you exactly what you didn't even know you needed.

Read more about the exhibition in this article in the May 2026 issue of Vogue Adria.