Mohamed Bourouissa
The work of photographer Mohamed Bourouissa considers individuals either on the forefront of integration or completely expelled from their communities. Teenagers from Bourouissa’s early neighborhood were the subject of his well-known series of portraits—staged and dramatic, they divulge the tension and issues young men in the suburbs of Paris might encounter. His work often sets tradition and contemporary realities parallel to one another, whether it’s genre scenes in painting and documentary photography, or taking unemployed individuals and making them into 3D-printed idols. He is most interested in “that very fleeting tenth of a second when the tension is at its most extreme...when the tension seems more violent than the confrontation with the other.”
Bourouissa has shown at a number of institutions including Haus der Kunst, Munich, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., Center of Photography, Geneva, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Saatchi Gallery, London, and the Foto Museum, Rotterdam, among others. He participated in the Havana Biennial and Lyon Biennial in 2015, Prospect Biennial in New Orleans in 2014, Venice Biennale in 2011, Berlin Biennale in 2010, and Younger than Jesus at the New Museum in 2009. The artist …
The work of photographer Mohamed Bourouissa considers individuals either on the forefront of integration or completely expelled from their communities. Teenagers from Bourouissa’s early neighborhood were the subject of his well-known series of portraits—staged and dramatic, they divulge the tension and issues young men in the suburbs of Paris might encounter. His work often sets tradition and contemporary realities parallel to one another, whether it’s genre scenes in painting and documentary photography, or taking unemployed individuals and making them into 3D-printed idols. He is most interested in “that very fleeting tenth of a second when the tension is at its most extreme...when the tension seems more violent than the confrontation with the other.”
Bourouissa has shown at a number of institutions including Haus der Kunst, Munich, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., Center of Photography, Geneva, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Saatchi Gallery, London, and the Foto Museum, Rotterdam, among others. He participated in the Havana Biennial and Lyon Biennial in 2015, Prospect Biennial in New Orleans in 2014, Venice Biennale in 2011, Berlin Biennale in 2010, and Younger than Jesus at the New Museum in 2009. The artist has held international residencies and he was awarded the Prix Fondation Blachère, Apt (2010), the Aide à la première exposition, Cnap (2008) and the First Prize at Les Rencontres d’Arles, Le Off.
National Fund for Contemporary Art, France
Galerie du Château d'Eau, Toulouse, France
International Art Fund, London, United Kingdom
Maison Europeenne de la Photographie (MEP), Paris, France
The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland
Kamel Mennour, Paris, France
