Thierry Urbain

Thierry Urbain's photographs are focused on architecture, archaeology and landscape. They never show a present which spreads out nor a past filled with exoticism but offers archetypes that the spectator will be able to invest according to his own desires.

born in 1960, France
lives and works in Paris

The simple and archetypal forms allow us to rebuild time and space in the dimensions of our imagination, to superpose to the photographic reality the equivalence of an inner map. Architecture is not the object of a study, but it brings to light through space the lines and geometry.
Poetry is in the sobriety of the place as in that of the images, in their profoundly sacred nature, within the peace and calm of an atmosphere heavy with the lifeless presence of a vast theater of memory.
To lose oneself in these hieratic, timeless and sometimes labyrinthine places that Thierry Urbain imagines, leaves the intoxicating and disturbing taste of eternity.

Education

1980

Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Nîmes (FR)

1982

Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Saint-Etienne (FR)

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)