The "Paris-Beijing, French Focus on China, 1844-2014" exhibition tells a story from the perspective of innumerable French soldiers, diplomats, missionaries, or single travelers, who have tried for over a century and a half to translate their fascination with China and the Chinese people using photographs.

It is this story, by using some famous examples, and other less known ones, that this exhibition hopes to tell. The exhibition starts with the first known photographic images made in China, 10 years after the invention of the process by Daguerre, and finishes in the present day. It's certainly no longer the same China, but the fascination remains the same.

It is seldom the case, nowadays, that people who have traveled in China have not published some pictures. To give some examples, the exhibition juxtaposes the subjective reportage of black and white photographs, with images of towering contemporary architecture, mixing large format color and small black and white prints, scholarly research and spontaneous captures, trying to translate into images the perplexity of foreigners confronted by the huge and monumental changes that China has undergone, from the closed and secret world of old China to the modern and vibrant world of today.

The existent stone-beasts of Southern Dynasties' Imperial Tombs, by Victor Segalen (1878-1919)

April 2 – 28, Today Art Museum, Beijing Tel: 010-58760600#100

May 12 – 25, World Financial Center, Beijing, www.bjwfc.com.cn Tel: 010-57630093

May 28 – June 15, Four seasons Hotel, Beijing Tel: 010 – 56958888

May 10 - 30, Kunming Museum, Kunming, www.kmmuseum.com Tel: 0871 – 3153359

June 6 – 7, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, www.gdmoa.org Tel: 020 - 87351393