Laurent Elie Badessi

Laurent Elie Badessi is a Franco American fine art photographer born in France. He belongs to a family with three generations of photographers. From an early age, this enabled him to explore and appreciate the art of photography.

After studying language and communication sciences at Université des Lettres d’Avignon, Badessi enrolled in a photography course at Université de Paris VIII. Curious about the psychological aspect in the interaction that occurs between a photographer and his sitter during a photo session, he decided to base his M.A. thesis on that subject. To explore this phenomenon further, he used the technique of “La photographie négociée” (The Negotiated Photography) and spent several months in Niger, Africa taking photographs of isolated tribes that had never (or very rarely) been exposed to the medium. For this project titled “Ethnological Fashion Photography”, he received the prominent “Bourse de l’aventure” (The Adventure Grant) among several other grants and awards.

Badessi started his career in Paris and continued working abroad before moving to the United States in the early 1990s.

After spending ten years focusing on the human figure, Badessi’s work SKIN, which was compiled in a book of the same name,...

Université de PARIS VIII, Paris, France
M.A. in Photography, Graduated with Honors, 1991

Université de lettres, Avignon, France
Degree in Communication and Sciences of Language, 1986

Born, Avignon, France
Lives and works in the US since 1991
French-American

Education

M.A. in Photography, Graduated with Honors, 1991
Université de PARIS VIII, Paris, France

Degree in Communication and Sciences of Language, 1986
Université de lettres, Avignon, France

Monograph

SKIN, with a foreword by Sondra Gilman (Founder and Chairperson of the photography department at the Whitney Museum), Edition Stemmle, 2000

Selected Awards and Grants

2011
Arte Laguna Prize, Finalists, Arsenal, Venice, Italy “American Dream, This is not a Dream”

Hasselblad Award, Sweden “American Dream, This is not a Dream”

5th Annual Photography Masters Cup, International Color Awards, UK “American Dream, This is not a Dream”

2004
Humanity Photo Award, Beijing, China “Ethnik”

1996
Department of Cultural Affairs, Grant, France “Metamorphosis - Skin”

1994
Kodak, Grant, France “Skin”

1988
Fuji Color, VSD, France-Inter, Bourse de l’Aventure, Grant, France “Ethological Fashion Photography – Ethnik”

1988
Kodak, Grant, France

1987
Fuji Color, Grant, France


Selected exhibitions

2015

Art Miami New York, Blank Space, New York (Group exhibition)

Fragments of Innocence, Blank Space, New Yor...