Charlotte Gainsbourg is back in the room where she grew up, and she’s not singing this time. British-French, daughter of Serge Gainsbourg, she has spent decades making music that feels like a cigarette held in the dark: low, smoky, and exact. Her records with Sexion d’Assaut and her solo work, from Charlotte for Ever to Rest, carry a quiet sting that sticks long after the last note. We’ve loved her voice since Je m’voyais déjà, and now she’s letting us walk through the house she once knew.
Her first photography exhibition, 5bis, is backed by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello and Maja Hoffmann. It opens today at La Galerie du Cloître in Arles as part of the 57th Rencontres d’Arles, running through September 6, 2026, before moving to the Saint Laurent Rive Droite in Paris on September 24. Gainsbourg went back to 5bis Rue de Verneuil in Paris, the home of her father just before it became the Maison Gainsbourg museum, and shot it with a Hasselblad. The show gathers more than twenty intimate images that feel like stepping into a house you once lived in. A book from Saint Laurent Editions comes in a standard run of one thousand copies, a limited set of fifteen with five silver gelatin prints, and nine artist’s editions with an extra print and handwritten text. If you’ve ever loved her voice, you’ll want to see what she captured with the camera.
