This exhibition takes its title from a project by Paul Graham developed over several trips across the United States in the early 2000s. Rejecting the epic notion of the decisive moment, Graham photographed ordinary scenes from everyday life, revealing the emotion that can emerge from the commonplace. His images captured actions without climax or resolution, leaving only that faint “shimmer of possibility” that appears when something begins to unfold.
Following this same premise, and in dialogue with the theme of PHotoESPAÑA 2026, Reimagining, the exhibition proposes a reading of the José Luis Soler Collection through a selection of works permeated by this particular glow.
These photographs never fully reveal themselves, but instead invite a complicit viewer to complete the picture before them. On the one hand, there is a group of deliberately ambiguous images, dominated by a sense of mystery, hypothesis, suspicion or absence. On the other, fragments of a decontextualised and interrupted reality, as if the camera had arrived late to the scene.
Night, dreams, intoxication, the city and its outskirts, the world of entertainment and its fictions are the protagonists of different groups of images that unfold through an associative installation, in which certain thematic or dramatic coincidences allow a shared narrative to emerge.
There is something in these images as powerful as what they show: the off-screen, the countless social, political and emotional circumstances behind these faces and landscapes. Each photograph is a doorway into a possible story, towards an interpretation that can never be definitive.
Andrea Franco, curator
A Tribute to José Luis Soler
José Luis Soler Vila (1956–2024) was a businessman deeply committed to his surroundings, passionate about art and aware of culture as an essential asset to society. Together with his wife, Susana Lloret Segura, and with the advice of Vicente Todolí, he built a valuable collection of abstract art and photography. His legacy, comprising more than two thousand photographs by leading international artists, seeks to remain alive and be shared with the artistic community and the public.
The José Luis Soler Collection and PHotoESPAÑA have established an annual award in his memory, highlighting his photographic collection while supporting new talent in research, curating, mediation and cultural management. The award seeks to give visibility to emerging curators, whether Spanish or international residents in Spain, as part of a philanthropic approach that also recognises their work.
In its second edition, the José Luis Soler Curatorial Award has been granted to Andrea Franco for her exhibition project Un destello de posibilidad, a cinematic reading of the José Luis Soler Collection. The exhibition can be visited at the José Luis Soler Photography Space at Bombas Gens (València), as part of the PHotoESPAÑA 2026 Official Section. The first edition of the award was given to Eva del Llano for Mnemosyne. Derivas y fragmentos en la producción de memoria.
Image: Jürgen Schadeberg, Spanish bar, 1971 © Jürgen Schadeberg
Opening hours
Open Friday to Monday
Friday, Saturday and Monday: 4:00 PM–9:00 PM
Sunday: 10:00 AM–2:00 PM
Exceptions
Closed on October 9 and 12, December 8 and 25, and from January 1 to 4.
Free admission with registration
