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A self-portrait does not always need the artist’s face. Sometimes it can be a body moving through colour, a gesture caught halfway between dance and painting, a model becoming brushstroke, image, and idea all at once.
That is the energy behind Carlijn Jacobs’ Autoportrait, now on view at Acne Paper Palais Royal in Paris from June 25 to July 26, 2026. Presented in celebration of 30 years of Acne Studios, the exhibition brings together works created for the anniversary issue of Acne Paper, using self-portraiture, performance, movement, and the body as a way to think about image-making from the inside out.
At the centre of the project is Lulu Tenney, photographed by Jacobs in a series that turns the act of posing into something more unstable and alive. Instead of simply appearing in front of the camera, Tenney becomes part of the image’s construction: body, performer, tool, subject, and artwork. The question running through the exhibition feels simple but powerful: what happens when the subject becomes the work itself?
The project was created for Acne Paper’s twenty-first issue, also titled Autoportrait, a special edition marking three decades of the Stockholm house. The issue looks back at the creative ecosystem that has grown around Acne Studios since its founding in 1996, bringing together fashion, art, design, architecture, publishing, and the brand’s wider circle of collaborators.
Jacobs’ images capture that anniversary not as a corporate milestone, but as a state of creative motion. The cover, styled by Imruh Asha, features Tenney in a joyful performance of colour and movement; Acne Studios describes it as a celebration of artistic freedom, intimacy, and the meeting point between art and fashion.
The setting matters, too. Acne Paper Palais Royal is Acne Studios’ first permanent gallery space, located beneath the historic arcades of Palais Royal. Designed as an extension of the magazine’s world, the space hosts exhibitions, talks, launches, and cultural events, turning the printed logic of Acne Paper into something architectural and public.
What makes Autoportrait interesting is that it refuses the usual split between photographer and subject, fashion image and artwork, performance and document. Jacobs does not simply photograph a model. She stages a moment where identity is made through motion, where the body paints its own temporary image, and where self-portraiture becomes less about resemblance than transformation.
