François Xavier Gbre

François-Xavier Gbré (b. 1978, Lille, France) lives and works between La Rochelle in France and Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

In touch with time and geography, his work summons the language of architecture as a witness to memory and social change. From colonial remains to landscapes redefined by current events, he explores territories and revisits History. This constant dialogue with his environment leads him to use different scales and modes of exhibition, whether in the presentation of meticulous installations, linked to a real investigation of the territory, or in the use of architecture itself to make photography resonate in a physical relationship with the spectator or the public space.

Recent exhibition selection : Lova (Fondation H, Antananarivo, Madagascar, 2023), A world in Common: Contemporary African Photography (Tate, Londres, 2023), Dakar Biennal (Musée des Civilisations Noires, Sénégal, 2022), Shifting dialogues: photography from the Walther Collection (Düsseldorf, Allemagne, 2022), La Nage de l’Elephant (Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Côte d’Ivoire, 2021), Ton pied, mon pied (Jimei x Rencontres d’Arles, Xiamen, Chine, 2020), Chine – Afrique : Beyond the colorline (Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, 2020), Sogno d’Oltremare (Museo MAN, Italie, 2019), Afriques Capitales (La Villette, Paris, 2018), Landscape Photography Today (Denver Art Museum, U.S.A., 2018), Recent Histories (The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm, Allemagne, 2017), The Past is a Foreign Country (Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford College, USA, 2015), Fragments (Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Côte d’Ivoire, 2015), Abroad (Art Twenty One, Nigeria, 2015).

His photographs and installations are part of the collections of Moma (USA),  Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), Tate Modern (London, UK), Smithsonian Institution (Washington, Usa), Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane, Australia),  the Walther Collection (Neu-Ulm, Germany – New York, Usa), the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Usa, 2020), Collection des Rencontres d’Arles (France), Fonds National d’Art Contemporain (France) and many other.

In 2020, François-Xavier Gbré won the Louis Roederer Prize at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles.