Optocht met praalwagen tijdens Mardi Gras op een plein in Parijs 1896

Curator: What strikes me is the dreamlike atmosphere that envelops this scene. It’s an image titled "Optocht met praalwagen tijdens Mardi Gras op een plein in Parijs," capturing a Mardi Gras parade in Paris back in 1896, currently held at the Rijksmuseum. I get a profound sense of otherworldly reverie from it. The monochrome palette feels like memory itself. What are your thoughts? Editor: I immediately notice the careful composition and layering, how Delizy focuses not just on the procession itself, but the urban theater and infrastructure making such a display possible. Think of the logistics, the craft of the costumes, the societal structures permitting such lavish expenditures for a fleeting moment. Curator: That’s fascinating; I’m stuck on how photography, especially in that era, could somehow still render the extraordinary ordinariness. It has captured a city both grand and absurd, regal and comical, all at once. And those… pumpkin people? Are they characters in some long-lost carnival tradition? Editor: Delizy really highlights class. Consider the crowd pressed against the palace—an opulent display backed by monumental architecture made from hewn stone versus performers encased in cumbersome shapes, objects of amusement, products and embodiments of physical labor on temporary display. Curator: The print feels strangely intimate despite capturing a very public scene. I can almost smell the festive air, hear the muffled sounds of laughter and music. Photography feels like it shouldn't possess such depth of sensory transport, yet there it is! Editor: And think about the wet collodion process and how Delizy carefully mastered those developing processes and printing, choices regarding tonal range, dodging and burning. They were conscious decisions by a skilled practitioner thinking through how an object can be rendered meaningful with technology. It invites so much to ponder around modes of making. Curator: It invites, indeed! All of this to remind us to think further about celebrations past... how they’ve shaped us, entertained us, given respite and shaped the cultural identities that echo into the present. Thank you, Delizy! Editor: This photograph highlights an art that hides art – of planning, building, and maintaining the performance itself, rather than just looking at a picturesque outcome. It reveals the structures holding this type of fantasy together. Thanks for highlighting this seldom examined intersection!