“Photoromance” is the first extended solo exhibition dedicated to the work of Ivorian photographer Paul Kodjo in France. A major figure of the country’s post-independence culture, he was among the first African photographers to have explored the genre of the photo-novel (photoroman), taking up its narrative potential and its capacity to transpose the language of cinema into still images.

Bringing together photographs from his photo-novels with other, largely unpublished works, the exhibition retraces Paul Kodjo’s trajectory through the 1960s and 1970s, from his time in Paris to his return to Abidjan, where he founded the avant-garde MAMEDIS (Mass Media Service) Agency that worked across photography, cinema and publishing. It was with this agency that he produced his first photo-novels, contributing to the development of this genre, which first emerged in Europe, throughout West Africa. Published weekly from 1971 in the weekly Ivoire Dimanche newspaper, these serial photo-novels featured thrilling plot twists and inaugurated the aesthetic, visual and narrative codes of an Ivorian-style sentimental education.

Shot in public spaces as well as in domestic interiors, these photo-novels also reflect the social and economic transformations of the country over the course of the “Ivorian miracle” of the 1960s and 1970s. Chronicling this period of prosperity through his work, Paul Kodjo mobilised his artistic eye, his cinematographic framings and his taste for narrative in an œuvre that also captured the festive nightlife of Abidjan and the urban fashion and social life of his era.

This project has been awarded the label Bicentenaire de la Photographie by the ministère de la Culture and is part of the official Bicentenaire programme, running from 01 Sep 2026 to 30 Sep 2027.