TYLER MITCHELL WISH THIS WAS REAL 28.03 – 17.08.2025
TYLER MITCHELL
American photographer Tyler Mitchell is driven by dreams of paradise against the backdrop of history. Since his rise to prominence in the world of fashion, Mitchell has propelled a visual narrative of beauty, style, utopia, and the landscape that expands visions of Black life. Photo Elysée presents Mitchell’s first solo exhibition in Switzerland, offering new perspectives on his longstanding themes of self-determination and the extraordinary radiance of the everyday, and showing how photography can be rooted in the past while evoking imagined futures.
Exhibition
Wish This Was Real explores Mitchell’s work, from his early portraits and videos that pursue dreams of leisure and self-expression to his elaborate landscapes that revel in visions of paradise underscored by the complexities of history and social identity in the United States. Central to the exhibition is a display featuring photography and mixed-media sculptures by artists whose work deeply resonates with Mitchell’s creative lineage, such as Rashid Johnson, Gordon Parks, and Carrie Mae Weems. This unique intergenerational dialogue sets Mitchell’s photography within a broad spectrum of visual experimentation and intellectual heritage.
Wish This Was Real is curated by Brendan Embser and Sophia Greiff and is produced by the C/O Berlin Foundation.
Bio
Tyler Mitchell (b. 1995, USA) is a Brooklyn-based artist, photographer, and filmmaker. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Film and Television from New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 2017. Mitchell’s work is held in numerous private and public collections, including the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Brooklyn Museum; Detroit Institute of the Arts; FOAM Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam; Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Pizzuti Collection of Columbus Museum of Art; National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; and Cleveland Museum of Art.
In 2018, Mitchell was commissioned to photograph Beyoncé for American Vogue’s September issue, making history, at the age of twenty-three, as the first Black photographer to shoot the magazine’s cover. Mitchell’s photography has also been published widely in magazines, including Aperture, Dazed, i-D, Interview, M Le Monde, Vanity Fair, American and British Vogue, W, WSJ, and Zeit Magazin. He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world: The New Black Vanguard (Aperture Gallery, New York); I Can Make You Feel Good (FOAM, Amsterdam, and International Center of Photography, New York); Social Works II and Chrysalis (Gagosian Gallery, London); and Domestic Imaginaries (SCAD Gallery, Savannah, Georgia).
After being presented in Berlin and Helsinki in 2024, Wish This Was Real is making a stopover at Photo Elysée before its presentation in Paris in autumn 2025.
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Joanne Carter is a British photography journalist, editor, curator, and the founder of *TheAppWhisperer.com*, one of the world’s leading platforms dedicated to mobile photography and art. Since its launch in 2009, TheAppWhisperer has become an international hub for artists of all levels to discover, learn, exhibit, and engage with contemporary photographic practice.Built on principles of inclusivity, accessibility, and artistic excellence, Joanne has spent almost two decades championing mobile photography as a serious artistic medium. Through interviews, critical essays, exhibitions, competitions, and education, she has helped shape and document the evolution of mobile art on a global scale.Her work has taken her internationally, lecturing on photography and mobile art at institutions and events including the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea, alongside appearances in the UK and Europe. She has served as a juror for international photography and mobile art awards across Portugal, Canada, the United States, South Korea, Italy, and the UK.Joanne is also the founder of *TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com*, one of the first online galleries dedicated exclusively to collectible mobile art, connecting artists with collectors across Europe, the United States, and Asia.Before founding TheAppWhisperer, Joanne worked extensively in print journalism and photographic publishing, including roles at a paparazzi photo agency and as deputy editor of a leading photography magazine. Her freelance journalism, criticism, and commentary have been published widely in both the UK and the US, with bylines in *The Times*, *The Sunday Times*, *The Guardian*, *Popular Photography*, *NikonPro*, *DPReview*, *Which?*, *Vogue Italia*, *LensCulture*, the *BBC*, and more recently, the *Financial Times*, where her published letters on photography continue to contribute to wider conversations around the medium.Alongside her editorial and curatorial work, Joanne’s own photographic practice has been exhibited internationally across the UK, Europe, South Korea, and the United States. Her work increasingly explores themes of grief, loss, death, memory, and the body.Her current research interests centre on grief, death, and poverty, with forthcoming postgraduate study leading towards doctoral research in these areas.Joanne is currently developing new long-form writing and photographic projects and is available for commissions, editorial projects, speaking engagements, and collaborations.Contact: joannetheappwhisperer@gmail.com)
