{"id":1858687,"date":"2026-03-31T18:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T15:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1858687"},"modified":"2026-03-31T18:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T15:28:07","slug":"francois-xavier-gbre-uses-his-photography-to-fill-in-historys-gaps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1858687","title":{"rendered":"Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Gbr\u00e9 Uses His Photography to Fill in History\u2019s Gaps"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Francois-Xavier-Gbre-NB-2026.-Credit-Nuits-Balneaires.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cWhat I try to do with my work is to fill the many gaps in history, and to tell history in different ways,\u201d said artist Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Gbr\u00e9, speaking via a video call.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was fitting that Gbr\u00e9 spoke these words, since so much information is still transmitted orally from older to younger generations in Africa. Born in France to French and Ivorian parents, Gbr\u00e9 uses his art to keep alive \u201cthe memory of the continent.\u201d He added, \u201cThis story needs to be written. And it could be written with words, but also with pictures.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA few days later after his interview with ARTnews<\/em>, in late January, Gbr\u00e9\u2019s \u201cRadio Ballast\u201d made its US debut in a duo exhibition with fellow Ivorian Nuits Baln\u00e9aires at the International Center of Photography (ICP), in a show curated by David Campany. This body of work is about the railroad system built in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire over a century ago by French colonizers to transport extracted natural minerals in the country to the port of Abidjan. It is a poignant group of pictures, especially because Gbr\u00e9\u2019s grandfather was a railway worker and the artist has a lifelong fascination with trains.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe genesis of this project came in the early 2010s, when Gbr\u00e9 was living in Mali, close to a train station. For about a year starting in 2024, Gbr\u00e9 photographed the railroad line and the landscape around it, from the north of C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire to the south, to interrogate the country\u2019s histories of colonization, independence and modernity. The title of the series refers both to untold stories and the crushed rocks on which railway tracks are laid.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been looking at the new industry. At the villages that became cities thanks to the trains. I\u2019ve been looking at the first train stations built more than one century ago,\u201d shared Gbr\u00e9. \u201cThen I\u2019ve been looking at the modern architecture, because when C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire became independent, F\u00e9lix Houphou\u00ebt-Boigny [the country\u2019s first president] decided to modify this train station to make it modern, like he did in the city of Abidjan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe pictures came with challenges: some railroad workers were not keen on Gbr\u00e9 taking these images, in part because they were unfamiliar with his work and the project. Fran\u00e7oise Remarck, the Ivorian Minister of Culture, who had seen Gbr\u00e9\u2019s work at exhibitions in Abidjan and at the 2024 Venice Biennale, helped the photographer gain access.<\/p>\n

\n\tCampany, the creative director of the ICP, told ARTnews <\/em>that Gbr\u00e9 represents the \u201cpast in a political sense, but also in a kind of economic and cultural sense. Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier understands photography almost like a kind of archaeology. He\u2019s really developed quite a sophisticated way of thinking about [how] an image made in the present can be this gateway or portal into thinking about the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBorn in 1978 in the French city of Lille, Gbr\u00e9 did not intend to become a photographer. He broke his shoulder while playing football, and thereafter was invited by a friend to join him in a photo lab. Gbr\u00e9\u2019s journey in the field started in 2000, when he began shooting the city where he was born in black and white. Having \u201crealized that I was not interested in going to the university anymore,\u201d he left his biochemistry class to study photography at the \u00c9cole Sup\u00e9rieure des M\u00e9tiers Artistiques in Montpellier, France, between 2000 and 2002. Around that time, he worked as an assistant for other photographers in Milan who specialized in fashion, beauty, design, landscape, and architecture. Gbr\u00e9 gravitated toward the latter two types of photography\u2014especially because he had always loved architecture. In 2007, some four years after he became a professional photographer, he officially decided to focus on architecture and landscapes.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>
Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Gbr\u00e9, Agn\u00e9by, Agboville<\/em>, from the series \u201cRadio Ballast,\u201d 2024.<\/span>\u00a92025 Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Gbr\u00e9\/ADAGP, Paris<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen you are a young photographer, you are looking for a style, for something to tell, how to tell it and what you really want to tell. I was a general photographer, shooting portraits, fashion, landscape. It was a mix of many, many things and it wasn\u2019t really clear. And I really like working with other photographers focusing on architecture and design [then] I realized that I was really interested in that,\u201d recalled Gbr\u00e9. \u201cThat\u2019s what I really wanted to do because when you [walk] around, you are kind of free. And you are not closed in a studio [and] you can go around wherever you want. And I loved architecture from the beginning. I used to draw. I loved geometry when I was at school so it came back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter a few years of working in Italy, Gbr\u00e9 relocated to Africa: first to the Malian capital of Bamako, then to the Ivorian city of Abidjan, where he currently lives and works in addition to La Rochelle in France. Periodically, his practice also involves traveling elsewhere, to countries such as Madagascar.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2023, Gbr\u00e9 was invited by Fondation H, a Malagasy art foundation with spaces in Antananarivo and Paris, for a residency on the architectural heritage of the former city, which is the capital of Madagascar, a former colony of France. He recalled that he was \u201cfree to go around the city\u201d during the residency. What resulted was an exhibition titled \u201cLova,\u201d which means \u201cHeritage\u201d in Malagasy. The show featured works shot during his time in Antananarivo: including capturing the city\u2019s architecture and colonial remnants. These pictures tell stories about the city and country\u2019s past, not by recounting events from long ago but by picturing the places containing history. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe\u2019s a traveler. He works like he has a map in his head. Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier cannot be lost in a city even if the city is [new to him],\u201d said C\u00e9cile Fakhoury, the founder of the eponymous gallery which has represented Gbr\u00e9 for close to 15 years. \u201c[His] very sharp photographs [have] so much history. He captures the story of our humanity through landscape and architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFakhoury first found out about Gbr\u00e9\u2019s work during a research period in 2012 prior to opening her gallery in Abidjan, which now also has spaces in Dakar and Paris. She even had a file on her computer of the photographer\u2019s work before she knew him personally. She recalled that they met \u201cby chance,\u201d when the photographer participated in the Biennale Regard Beninin Cotonou that same year. On display in that Biennale was a body of work by Gbr\u00e9 documenting the erstwhile National Printing Factory in Porto Novo, which was in disrepair.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>
Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Gbr\u00e9, Rubino<\/em>, from the series \u201cRadio Ballast,\u201d 2024.<\/span>\u00a92025 Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Gbr\u00e9\/ADAGP, Paris<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThe photographer shared with the gallerist that he had plans to be in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire with his family from Mali, where he was based at the time, and when Gbr\u00e9 eventually visited the gallery months later, he did so with a body of work. It marked the beginning of the long-term working relationship.<\/p>\n

\n\tFakhoury disclosed that when she exhibited Gbr\u00e9\u2019s art at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London in 2013, her booth attracted visitors such as Arthur Walther, a photography collector who then went on to tell Tate curator Simon Baker about Gbr\u00e9. Walther bought two works and donated one to Tate Modern. Since then, Fakhoury\u2019s gallery has shown Gbr\u00e9\u2019s work around the world, helping place it in biennials, exhibitions, and collections like those of MoMA, the Centre Pompidou, Fondation H, and the Smithsonian Institution.<\/p>\n

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\"Two<\/div>\n<\/div>
Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Gbr\u00e9, Gare de Bouak\u00e9<\/em>, from the series \u201cRadio Ballast,\u201d 2024.<\/span>\u00a92025 Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Gbr\u00e9\/ADAGP, Paris<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tShowing his work at places and exhibitions like the one at the ICP is Gbr\u00e9\u2019s way of continuing to document and display history.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRadio Ballast is a part of the history of C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire using the train system as a reason to look at the history of the country,\u201d said Gbr\u00e9. The body of work and exhibition is in line with his practice being about \u201cfilling the gaps and making history accessible to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/artists\/francois-xavier-gbre-photography-icp-1234779539\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Francois-Xavier-Gbre-NB-2026.-Credit-Nuits-Balneaires.jpg?w=1024″] \u201cWhat I try to do with my work is to fill the many gaps in history, and to tell history in different ways,\u201d said artist Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Gbr\u00e9, speaking via a video call. It was fitting that Gbr\u00e9 spoke these words, since so much information is still transmitted orally from older to younger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1858687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1858687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1858687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1858687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1858687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}