Thierry ARDITTI

Thierry Arditti is a French contemporary artist.

Photography. I started late in life by forcing open the door of Jean-Claude Lemagny, the phenomenal curator of the Prints and Drawings Department at the French National Library, in charge of the collections of photographs by authors, in order to present him with my “photographs in motion”. He commended me. I can never thank him enough. Several months later, I took part in a group exhibition at the Théâtre du Rond-Point on the Champs Élysées. I especially remember Martine Franck’s photographs. In the late 1980s, Patrick Roegiers, the author who defined “the act of seeing” with a quote from the painter Wols: “In order to see, it is not necessary to know anything other than how to see”, gave me my first foothold with an introduction to the French newspaper Le Monde’s editorial board which decided to publish photographs instead of drawings. The old culture department and the new photo department commissioned me take portrait photographs of prominent people. I accepted on one condition - one I always consider categorical – that I have a private appointment devoted exclusively to the photographic act. On her arrival in 1989, Danielle Heymann entrusted me with her support. I produced a large number of portrait photographs celebrities, mainly in the cultural world. “If they had no body, they would have no mind” according to James Joyce. I continue to conduct this research in my portrait photographs of anonymous people.

Thierry Arditti
Paris, 3 June 2020

To view the exhibition catalogue : click here

Exhibitions at the Frédérick Mouraux Gallery:
2023 - June/August - Summer Group Show: click here
2022 - June/August - Summer Group Show: click here
2021 - June/August - Group Show: click here
2020 - Dec - Group Show: click here
2020 - Sept./Oct. - Solo Show: Womanhood, man’s soulmate: click here