
Didier Ben Loulou
Biography
Didier Ben Loulou (Date of birth: 29 May 1958), is a Franco-Israeli
photographer.
Didier Ben Loulou was born on 29 May 1958 in Paris, France. He moved
to Israel at the beginning of the 1980s, where he worked on a first project,
Israel Eighties, a series of images in black and white.
In the next two decades, Didier Ben Loulou undertook a vast project on
towns and cities, a collection of portraits under the format of a
“photographic repertoire” of urban geographies. In the ancient historical
port of Jaffa and the Ajami Neighbourhood, he observed the comings and
goings of populations, their exile and asylum. His focus moved to
Jerusalem between the two Intifadas (1991-2008), cornerstone of his work,
where he explored the meanders of a city with multiple borders, filled with
violence and the sacred. A book, Jerusalem, was published in 2008.
Didier Ben Loulou questioned the spiritual and the invisible again in a
series of images on the Hebrew letters, the Aleph-Bet transcending the
sacred and the profane, to establish a bond between the living and the dead
(2012).
He travelled along the Mediterranean coast, to cities and landscapes, in
search of the meaning of wandering. From 2006 to 2008, he photographed
gypsies mingling with migrants in Athens, merger of the Third and the
Fourth Worlds on the outskirts of the capital. Since then, Didier Ben
Loulou has been leading a nomadic existence between Jerusalem,
Marseille, Jaffa, Athens, Tanger, Palermo, Safed, Thessaloniki and
Ajaccio…
From 2006 to 2019, he finalized a project on Corsica (Sanginaires),
quintessence according to him of the Mediterranean. He examined the
notion of re-enchantment and the possibility of happiness in a chaotic
world. “I simply want to be the bearer of what is revealed to me, silently
and in secret”.
The square format and colours are all-important features of his work, as
well as the Fresson process used to print his analogue images since 1979.
He is a Villa Medici Hors les Murs laureate (1995) and the recipient of a
Fiacre (French Ministry of Culture) scholarship (1997).
Didier Ben Loulou is the author of about twenty books, including two
journals and reflections on his approach, Chroniques de Jérusalem et
d’ailleurs (2016), Un Hiver en Galilée (2018) and Mise au Point with
Fabien Ribery (2019).
His works are regularly exhibited in Europe and the United States. The
Institute for Contemporary Publishing Archives (IMEC) is the repository
of his private archives since 2007.Exhibitions
The Gallery of Photographic Art, Tel-Aviv, Israël, 1983
Palais du Pharo, Marseille, France, 1994
Centre de la photographie, Genève, Suisse, 1994
Galerie Graphe, Paris, France, 1994
Tour du Roy René, Fort Saint-Jean, Marseille, France, 1996
Centre méditerranéen de la photographie, Paysages des deux rives, Bastia, France, 1996
Espace Saint-Cyprien, Toulouse, France, 1996
Centre culturel français, Ramallah et Gaza, Palestine, 1997
Galerie Camera Obscura, Les Écritures, Paris, France, 1998
Impressions Gallery, York, Royaume-Uni, 1998
Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts, Portland (Oregon), États-Unis, 1998
IFA Galerie, Orient-Traum und Wirklichkeit, Stuttgart, Allemagne, 1999
Artothèque, Nantes, France, 2000
Museum on the Seam, A Touch of Grace, Jérusalem, Israël, 2000
Galerie municipale du Château d'eau, Toulouse, France, 2001
Vision Gallery, Jérusalem, Israël, 2001
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme, Jérusalem, traverses et marges, Paris, France, 2001
Fotogaleria, Teatro San Martin, Buenos Aires, Argentine, 2001
Atelier de Visu, Marseille, France, 2001
Galerie Pennings, Jerusalem: Byways and Sidelines, Eindhoven, Pays-Bas, 2002
Benham Gallery, Can We Talk Now ? With Simon Norfolk, Seattle, États-Unis, 2003
Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles, États-Unis, 2003
Galerie Rimonim, The Face of a City in Conflict, East Hampton, New York, États-Unis, 2003
Hovedbiblioteket, Esbjerg, Danemark, 2004
Galerie Krisal, Sincérité du visage, Genève, Suisse, 2004
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme, Rencontres, Paris, 2005
Museum of Photographic Art, San Diego, États-Unis, 2007
Galerie Camayeux, Marseille, France, 2007
Cats & Marbles, Villes d'hier, visages d'aujourd'hui, Mois de la photographie, Athènes, Grèce, 2007
Le Garage photographie, Marseille, 2013
Galerie Le Carré d'art, Athènes, Chartres-de-Bretagne, 2013
Le Carré Amelot, Athènes, La Rochelle, 2014
La Non Maison, D’une ville à l’autre, Aix-en-Provence, 2014
Arles, La Bourse du travail, Marseille, Rencontres de la photographie off, Arles, 2014
Hôtel Blain, The Tribe, Arles, 2015
Centre culturel Romain Gary, Vision Fresson, Bernard Plossu et Didier Ben Loulou, Jérusalem, Israël, 2015
Galerie Malebranche avec Bernard Guillot, Le Caire Jérusalem, Paris, 2017
Des amours silencieuses : carte blanche à Didier Ben Loulou, Yvelines Antiques, Paris, 2018
Jérusalem, médiathèque, Berck-sur-Mer, 2018
De la lettre à la vie, Galerie Gérard Lévy, Paris, 2019
Sanguinaires, Galerie Quintessence, Paris, September 2020
Mediterranean Flux, Naxos, September 2020
Showing all 5 artworks