Bigaignon X Rhinoceros Gallery “Act 1/3: Under The Light”
In Rome, rhinoceros gallery (www.rhinocerosroma.com/galleria), the contemporary art space founded by Alessia Caruso Fendi, inaugurates the first chapter of a trilogy of exhibitions in collaboration with the French gallery Bigaignon (www.bigaignon.com), running from September 2025 to March 2026. Entitled “Act 1/3: Under the Light”, the first group exhibition is dedicated to the essential element of light and will be on view from September 19 to November 18, 2025.
Reviewed by
20. September 2025
I would like artists to be convinced that supreme skill and art consist in knowing how to use black and white... for it is light and shadow that give objects their relief.
— Leon Battista Alberti
Bigaignon is a contemporary art gallery based in Paris, active for nearly a decade in the international promotion of artists exploring the fundamentals of light, space, and time, through practices rooted in minimalism, abstraction, and conceptual photography.
“Under the sign of light, we inaugurate the collaboration with Bigaignon, bringing to rhinoceros artists who explore the essence of this theme through different means of expression. Their works, built upon light, blur the boundaries between artistic languages. What unites them is an unceasing search between imagination and reality, between the finite and the infinite, which become complementary elements, fragments composing a balance where everything is coherent,” states Alessia Caruso Fendi.
— Leon Battista Alberti
Bigaignon is a contemporary art gallery based in Paris, active for nearly a decade in the international promotion of artists exploring the fundamentals of light, space, and time, through practices rooted in minimalism, abstraction, and conceptual photography.
“Under the sign of light, we inaugurate the collaboration with Bigaignon, bringing to rhinoceros artists who explore the essence of this theme through different means of expression. Their works, built upon light, blur the boundaries between artistic languages. What unites them is an unceasing search between imagination and reality, between the finite and the infinite, which become complementary elements, fragments composing a balance where everything is coherent,” states Alessia Caruso Fendi.
Light, the foundation of all creation, has always been one of the most sought-after and investigated themes in art history. In photography in particular, it is inseparable from the medium itself — which takes form precisely through and thanks to it. The exhibition brings together 18 works, including photographs, paintings, sculptures, and installations, by 15 artists represented by the Parisian gallery.
Among the featured artists, Thomas Paquet presents three works, including a monumental installation in dialogue with the pieces currently on view at PM23, the foundation of Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti in Rome. Italian photographer Renato D’Agostin presents a work composed of 15 silver gelatin prints that delicately and poetically recount the transformations of light in the urban landscape, while Portuguese visual artist Fernando Marante explores the interaction between light and movement.
Among the featured artists, Thomas Paquet presents three works, including a monumental installation in dialogue with the pieces currently on view at PM23, the foundation of Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti in Rome. Italian photographer Renato D’Agostin presents a work composed of 15 silver gelatin prints that delicately and poetically recount the transformations of light in the urban landscape, while Portuguese visual artist Fernando Marante explores the interaction between light and movement.
An intriguing dialogue also emerges between the works of Hungarian artist Máté Dobokay and those of American painter James Howell, to whom the Parrish Museum in New York is simultaneously dedicating a retrospective. Chris McCaw, known for his works created with sunlight, presents a new triptych.
More subtle and intimate approaches to the theme of light are also represented: from the evanescent portrait by Rossella Bellusci to the minimalist works of Anne-Camille Allueva and Anne Blanchet, and the wall sculptures of Mireille Fulpius. An original confrontation also arises between the photographs of French artist Yannig Hedel and those of Elyn Zimmerman, a key figure in the Light & Space movement that emerged in the 1970s. Rachelle Bussières’ works integrate scientific observation and intuitive experience, using the analog lumen print process. Concluding the exhibition is Ralph Gibson’s iconic photograph The Priest, a powerful epilogue to this first act, scheduled from September 19 to November 18, 2025.
More subtle and intimate approaches to the theme of light are also represented: from the evanescent portrait by Rossella Bellusci to the minimalist works of Anne-Camille Allueva and Anne Blanchet, and the wall sculptures of Mireille Fulpius. An original confrontation also arises between the photographs of French artist Yannig Hedel and those of Elyn Zimmerman, a key figure in the Light & Space movement that emerged in the 1970s. Rachelle Bussières’ works integrate scientific observation and intuitive experience, using the analog lumen print process. Concluding the exhibition is Ralph Gibson’s iconic photograph The Priest, a powerful epilogue to this first act, scheduled from September 19 to November 18, 2025.
In parallel, Bigaignon will also curate a space on the first floor of the Rhinoceros building until March 2026, presenting Frame Destruct, the latest creation from Olivier Ratsi’s Echolyse series: an immersive light installation that places the viewer at its center. The work, which represents a synthesis of the three exhibitions scheduled at rhinoceros gallery, explores the perception of light, time, and space through a graphic language of forms and lines, freezing different phases of a frame’s implosion. It is inspired by the chronophotography techniques of the 19th century developed by Étienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard Muybridge.
Light has its own power and its own mystery. What attracts me comes from light — from the way things take form through its use.
— Sidney Goodman
— Sidney Goodman
Rhinoceros Gallery
Via del Velabro 9A, Rome
Via del Velabro 9A, Rome
Dates:
September 19, 2025 — November 18, 2025
Daily from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm
September 19, 2025 — November 18, 2025
Daily from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm
