The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Noir & Blanc—A Story of Photography is M+’s first exhibition dedicated to exploring the medium of photography and also the opening programme of the French May Arts Festival 2024, co-presented by M+ and the French May Arts Festival, in collaboration with the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), and exclusively sponsored by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. The exhibition includes more than 250 significant photographs from BnF’s world-renowned collection of photography, complemented by over 30 works drawn from the M+ Collections, examining black-and-white photography as a time-honoured medium of art.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Noir & Blanc—A Story of Photography is a thematic presentation of photographic works dating from 1915 to 2019 and is the first major public exhibition of BnF’s photography collections in Asia. It features over 170 internationally celebrated photographers, including Man Ray, Diane Arbus, Mario Giacomelli, Robert Frank, William Klein, Daido Moriyama, Valérie Belin, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Over 30 works from the M+ Collections will also be showcased, spotlighting how eminent Asian photographers and artists such as Chang Chao-Tang, Ho Fan, Lang Jingshan, Liu Heung Shing, Nalini Malani, Ishimoto Yasuhiro, and Yau Leung transformed this expressive medium.

The three thematic sections of the exhibition offer different perspectives to understand black-and-white image-making over the course of more than a century. ‘Aiming for Contrast’ captures moments of stark opposition in our everyday existence that intensify perceptions of reality. ‘Light and Shadow’ demonstrates how photographers paint using light, expressing nuances of texture, mood, pattern and structure. ‘Colour Chart’ highlights the tonal nuances of grey, which introduce infinite variations to monochrome photography.