Adrien Selbert

Adrien
Selbert

biography

Photographer, filmmaker, multimedia editor, born in 1985, member of Agence VU’ since 2017, based in Paris (France)

Graduated from the Beaux-Arts de Nantes and the Arts Décoratifs de Paris, Adrien Selbert overcomes the conventional limits imposed by imagesto show the contemporary world, its youth and diversity, in a sensitive relationship to time and substance.

In 2005, at twenty years old, he discovers Bosnia – a country that “jumped in his face” and that he has been documenting ever since. In 2010, he directs with Aude Léa Rapin “Nino’s Place“: this 52-minute documentary, awarded Best Grand Reportage at the Geneva International Film Festival of Human Rights, deals with the tireless struggle of a mother to find the body of her dead son Nino, a radio journalist who disappeared during the first days of the capture of Srebrenica in 1995.

With “Srebrenica, nuit à nuit” (Srebrenica, Night to Night), he reveals, through photography, the specificity of young Bosnians’ lives who evolve in the heart of the vestiges of a war that they had not lived but to which they are systematically brought back. “His images of Srebrenica are spare and silent. They are sometimes reminiscent of the work of the great American artist Edward Hopper, whose still, sharply illuminated canvases captured some essence of human melancholy and solitude. Like Hopper, Selbert deploys realism so powerful that it takes the viewer beyond the surface into interior lives. This is realism intensely imagined, full of a revelatory fatalism.” writes the New York Times editorialist Roger Cohen to accompany the monograph published by Le Bec en l’Air in 2016.

In 2020, his series “Les Bords réels” (The Real Shores) is an extension of his long-term project on Bosnia. Twenty-five years after the Dayton Accords and the end of the conflict, “‘Les Bords réels’ is a state of time more than a state of play. It’s a long-term wandering haunted by this question: is there an after to the post-war period ? It is meant to reflect the image of the country it crosses: fragmentary, vibrant and chaotic.” His eponym photographic video is awarded with the Freelens’ New writings prize.

In parallel with his personal work, in the Balkans, but also in France with notably “Prince Jordan“, a fiction he directs in 2019 about young people facing a disaster, Adrien Selbert puts his documentary know-how and the singularity of his artistic vision at the service of the Press (Libération, Télérama, Néon, etc.), the cultural world (music labels, theater and dance companies, etc.), companies (fashion and luxury, etc.) or institutions (high schools, etc.).

His work is regularly exhibited and published, and has been distinguished with numerous awards and grants (Best Grand Reportage Award of the FIFDH, Prix Maison Blanche de la Photographie Contemporaine, the Freelens International Award for New Writings, MENTOR Jury Award, Emerging Talent Awards of LensCulture, grant to support contemporary documentary photography of the CNAP, Multimedia grant of the SCAM, etc.).

Series

Young & Queer

These photographs depict a portrait of young people in Ile-de-France who are eager to abolish gender boundaries in a joyful fury.

The Real Edges, 2020

Series | On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the end of the conflict in Bosnia in 2020, The Real Edges extends and completes the first photographic work by Adrien Selbert on Srebrenica.

Adrien Selbert séries

La Créole, 2020

This series is an assigment for the newspaper Libération. The photographer Adrien Selbert was photographed the 1 year of the collective “LA CREOLE” at the Club Le Chinois in Montreuil.

Adrien Selbert séries

Art & Fashion

Adrien Selbert was commissioned by the Libération, Néon Mag, Label Kiddermaster media to photograph the Paris Fashion week prêt-à-porter, fall-winter 2018-2019 collection...

Adrien Selbert séries

The Ones Left Out of Telework, 2020

This report is an assigment for the newspaper Libération. The station of Juvisy (Essonne), in the southern suburbs of Paris, is one of the busiest in France in normal times. During the lockdown, the trains are half empty. There are still some shadowy workers, who sometimes board the train with fear in their stomachs.

Adrien Selbert séries

Return of Nocturnal Fever, 2020

This series was commissioned by the newspaper Libération. Nearly 200 people gathered at Kilowatt, in the suburbs of Paris, for the first techno party since the end of the confinement...

Adrien Selbert séries

Paris Gaypride, 2018

This work is an assigment for the French newspaper Libération. The photographer Adrien Selbert had photographed the 2018 Paris Gaypride.

Adrien Selbert séries

Belgrade, Année Zéro 17, 2017

The cold spell has just hit Western Europe and has already been raging for several weeks in the East. It particularly threatens migrants trying to reach the Schengen area...

Adrien Selbert séries

Srebrenica, From Night to Night, 2015

Srebrenica is the first great personal work of Adrien Selbert. The series has been awarded by many institutions. On 11 July 1995, the Bosnian Serb army attacked the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica. More than 8 000 men will be massacred in 3 days. Twenty years later, the city seems frozen in the darkness of its history...

Adrien Selbert séries