LUX & UMBRA

Madrid, Spain

Contemporary photography blending fashion photography, surrealism, abstraction, conceptual portraiture, and experimental visual language.

PHotoESPAÑA 2026

Image credit

Viviane Sassen. Eudocimus Ruber, 2017 © Viviane Sassen

Meet the artist

The Movement

Contemporary Art, Photo

Exhibition Highlights - What you’ll see

The exhibition reveals both sides of Viviane Sassen:

the globally influential fashion image-maker and the deeply experimental artist behind the camera.

Photography expands into film, sculpture, shadow, and atmosphere — creating a world that feels hypnotic, strange, and intensely contemporary.

In LUX & UMBRA, Viviane Sassen transforms photography into something closer to dream imagery than documentation.

You’re watching:

  • Photographs where identity feels fragmented or anonymous
  • Dramatic contrasts between brightness and darkness
  • Bodies treated as shapes, silhouettes, textures, and symbols
  • Images suspended between fashion, intimacy, and abstraction

The exhibition feels sensual, mysterious, and visually addictive.

Worth the trip

Yes — especially if you love photography that pushes beyond realism.

Because Viviane Sassen has changed the visual language of contemporary photography — influencing fashion, editorial imagery, and conceptual art simultaneously.

LUX & UMBRA shows how photography can move away from simply “capturing reality” and become something emotional, ambiguous, and almost sculptural.

And within PHotoESPAÑA, it stands out as one of the exhibitions with the strongest visual identity.

How to experience it

Move slowly through the exhibition → compositions reveal themselves gradually

Focus on shadow as much as subject

Observe how abstraction and figuration constantly switch roles

Don’t try to “decode” every image → atmosphere matters more than explanation

Artlovers Tip:

This exhibition brings together more than 30 years of creative work — so don’t rush it.

Take a moment to reflect on why Viviane Sassen chose to photograph these subjects, these bodies, these shadows… and why she chose to show them this way.

Sometimes the most powerful part of the exhibition isn’t what you see immediately — but what stays in your mind afterwards.

Madrid, Spain

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