This article mobilises the two concepts of exhibition and fantasmagorie proposed in Walter Benjamin’s work. They indicate that the repair of the defect is a contemporary fantasmagorie in that, owing to the effects of very extensive technical arrangements, the defective bodies, by consensus, are repaired and reproducible, in particular by means of surgeon interventions, the condition of their exposure. But at the same time, remedying the deficiency can be seen as a fantasmagorie as it illustrates this trend of contemporary societies: illusion in progress but which, before disappearing, offers a reading key. Both concepts of exposure and fantasmagorie seem relevant to thinking about the deficiency, and its management, the repair of which is the dominant and thus emblematic feature of an era and of the relationships with others it generates and reproduces.