Tree of Love

Laurent Elie Badessi Fine Art Photography

About Laurent Elie Badessi Fine Art Photography

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, was internationally released in early 2000 by the prestigious Swiss publisher Edition Stemmle. The book contains introduction by Sondra Gilman, Founder and Chairperson of the photography committee at the Whitney Museum.

In 2004, Badessi was chosen by the company Charles Jourdan to produce a series of photographs for their advertising campaign. Because of the emblematic relationship between the medium of photography and this brand, Badessi accepted the project. Like photographer Guy Bourdin, who helped build that relationship thanks to his iconic images, Badessi was also given carte blanche. To bring his own vision to life, he played with fetishism and mythological symbolism. He created memorable visuals that are in the permanent collection of Le Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, Louvre.

Innocence (2009-Present) and Dreaming Marilyns (2012-13) followed. Like American Dream, This is not a dream they both explore “the fragility of life”, an important topic in his work.

Badessi’s photographs are part of many important private and public collections. He has received several prestigious awards, including a grant from French Department of Cultural Affairs for his Paris show “Métamorphoses”. In 2013, his photograph The Tree of Love (2012) shot for the Anne Fontaine Foundation was selected as the main image of the “Trees in Focus” exhibition and auction at Sotheby’s New York.

Solo and group shows of his work have taken place around the world in major cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Miami, London, Milan, Rome, Paris, Nice, Barcelona, Kuwait City, Beijing, Monaco and Dubai.

Badessi lives and works in New York City.

SELECTED COLLECTIONS : The Sondra Gilman & Celso Gonzales-Falla Collection, Sir Elton John Collection, The Buhl Collection, The Danforth Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville Fl., Bibliothèque Nationale de France Paris, Barry Diller, Paul Getty, Egon Von Furstenberg, The Theodore Chu Collection, Dr. Daniel Baker, Dr. Pier-Luigi Gibelli, Jorge Perez, Edna Dumas-Hermès, The Related Group, Bloomingdale’s, Saks, Musée des Arts Décoratifs - Musée de la Publicité Paris, Royal Caribbean, Pierre Cardin, Jacques Grange, Karl Lagerfeld…
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