Didier Ben Loulou

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

Complete list of works

Didier Ben Loulou

Jerusalem #206, 2000
29.5 x 29.5 cm Framed: 50 x 40 cm pigment print on cotton rag paper $2,400.00

Didier Ben Loulou

Jerusalem, Serie des Lettres #103, 1997
21 x 21 cm Framed: 50 x 40 cm fresson pigment print $2,500.00

Didier Ben Loulou

Jerusalem #V-49, 1996
15 x 15 cm Framed: 50 x 40 cm fresson pigment print $2,500.00

Didier Ben Loulou

Acco, 1987
15 x 22.5 cm Framed: 22 x 31 cm fresson pigment print

Didier Ben Loulou

Jaffa, 1983-1989
21 x 21 cm Framed: 50 x 40 cm fresson pigment print $2,500.00