Thierry-Urbain-Babylone-les-Cours

Thierry Urbain

Thierry Urbain's photographs are part of an approach related to architecture, archaeology and landscape.
born in 1960, France
lives and works in Paris

courtesy Bigaignon

Thierry Urbain is not interested in “where” and “when”, nor in exoticism : he prefers to propose simple and archetypal forms, open to the imagination which the spectator can invest according to his own desires.

“These architectures have always appeared to me as hieratic and timeless places open to the imagination of the human sciences because geography and history can be presented as utopias. Archetypes allow us to reconstruct space in the dimensions of our own imagination, to superimpose on the presupposed photographic reality the equivalent of an inner map.

Education

1980

Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Nîmes

1982

Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Saint-Etienne

Solo exhibitions

1999

Babylone – Galerie Palais Walderdorff – Trier (DE)

1997

Architektur III – Fotogalerie Wien – Vienne (AUS)

1996

Qsar El Saràb – galerie Pons – Paris (FR)

1994

Tarazona Foto – Festival International de Saragosse (ES)

1993

Hypogée – galerie Hérold – Bruxelles (BE)

1992

Babylone – galerie Pons – Paris (FR)

1991

Archéologies du désert – galerie Pons – Paris (FR)

Maison de la Photographie – Paris (FR)

Festival du Ciel et de l’Espace – Lectoure (FR)

Galerie Imago Lucis – Porto (PT)

1989

Galerie Pons – Paris (FR)

Group exhibitions (selection)

2021

Biennale de l’Image Tangible – Paris (FR)

2020

United – galerie Bigaignon – Paris (FR)

2018

Mémoires – galerie Bigaignon – Paris (FR)

2016

Rien ou si peu, tellement tout – Espace des Arts Plastiques – Saint-Dié (FR)

2001

La part du rêve – galerie Stepanska – Prague (CZ)

Noorderlicht Photofestival – Groningen (NL)

Journées photographiques de Bienne (CH)

De Natura Rerum – galerie Baudoin Lebon – Paris (FR)

1999

Souvenir Utopie – Stadthaus Ulm (DE)

Art Frankfurt 99 (DE)

Aipad – galerie Baudoin Lebon – New York (USA)

1998

Kunst Zürich 98 – galerie Markus Richter – Zurich (CH)

Internationale Séoul Photo-Triennale – C.A.I.S. gallery – Séoul (KR)

Space, Time and Architecture – galerie Markus Richter – Potsdam (DE)

Choix privé – Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts – Dijon (FR)

Awards

1995

Premier Prix de la 1ère Biennale Photographique Internationale de Tokyo

1992-1993

Pensionnaire de l’Académie de France à Rome, Villa Médicis

1990

Grand Prix KODAK de la Critique Photographique

Collections

Fond National d’Art Contemporain – Paris (FR)

Maison Européenne de la Photographie – Paris (FR)

Artothèque d’Arles (FR)

Artothèque de Grenoble (FR)

Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations – Paris (FR)

Museum of Fine Arts – Houston (USA)

Metropolitan Museum of Photography – Tokyo (JP)

Tokyo Fuji Art Museum – Tokyo (JP)

International Center of Photography – New York (USA)

Artworks

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