Xavier Zimbardo : « Holi »

Xavier Zimbardo is a photographer with an atypical background. He started out as a French teacher, but his passion for photography soon led him to abandon the education of our young heads and head for the mysterious Orient, which fascinates him to the point of never having returned.
He took his first steps in Thailand, where he forcefully denounced the sexual exploitation of young Thai children by despicable Western tourists eager for fresh meat. His report, published in PHOTO magazine, was immediately picked up by the press. Overnight, he became known as a photographer who takes the risk of exploring the underbelly of our society.
It was in India that he developed his photographic technique and vision, in which color took precedence over formal black and white in his expression. He made his most beautiful images in contact with Indian dyers, who enchanted him with their multicolored creations. He traveled this immense country relentlessly in search of the absolute, photographing all the rites, all the denominations, all the sects, all the religious or funerary events, to the point of feeling part of this immense, thousand-faceted culture.

It's this part of Xavier Zimbardo's work that we'd like to present to you, as the magic of color explodes, creating sublime renderings where emotion combines with the beauty of form in a perfect unity of place.

Born in 1955, he lives in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, where he taught himself the basics of photography, honing his eye in museums, galleries and art books. He then went on to study history and geography, which he financed by working part-time, and became a primary school teacher. But he didn't teach for long: too curious about the world to explain it without having seen it. Photography led him to recreation through the front door.
An avid amateur and photo-club organizer, Zimbardo first worked on reportage, winning a first prize in 1988 and declaring himself a professional. His reportage of the Holi ceremonies in India quickly won him acclaim, marking a territory he would never tire of exploring, that of religious fervor, in the colorful latitudes of Asia and the South, where fabrics, skin, colors, light and movement participate in a sensual, baroque expression of the uninterrupted dialogue of life and death. His reports have taken him to many countries, and for over thirty years he has been giving us his view of the world through his lens.
In 2006, he founded PHOTSOC, Festival International de la Photographie Sociale (International Festival of Social Photography), presenting established photographers in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and helping young photographers to emerge.
His photos are widely published in the international press, and major museums in Europe and the USA have acquired his work.