Winner of the European Publishers Award for Photography 2009, of the Leica Prize (2004) and of the Niépce Prize, main French prize in photography, (2000), Klavdij Sluban is a French photographer of Slovenian origin born in Paris on 3.3.1963.
He develops a rigorous and coherent body of work, never inspired by immediate and sensational current affairs, making him one of the most interesting photographers in so -called "author-photography". The Balkans, the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Caribbean, Central America, Russia and China can be read as many successive steps of an in-depth study of a patient proximity to the encountered real. His images are on show in such leading institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Photography of Tokyo, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Museum of Photography in Helsinki, the Fine Arts Museum in Canton...
His many books include Entre Parenthèses, (Photo Poche, Actes Sud), Transverses, (Maison Européenne de la Photographie) and Balkans -Transit, with a text by François Maspero (Le Seuil).
Since 1995, Sluban runs photography workshops with young offenders in prison. First originated in France, in the prison of Fleury-Mérogis with support from Henri Cartier Bresson, Marc Riboud and William Klein, this commitment was pursued in the disciplinary camps and prisons of Eastern Europe -Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldavia, Latvia - and in the disciplinary centres of Moscow and St Petersburg, and lately in Ireland and Central America (Guatemala and Salvador).
EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
2011
- Paris Photo , Grand Palais, Galerija Fotografija
- Centre d'art contemporain de Toulon, Hôtel des Arts, Confins, (catalogue 96
pages)
- Box Galerie, Bruxelles
- Centre Atlantique de la Photographie, Brest
2010
- Rencontres d’Arles 2010 – Festival de Photographies – 41ème édition, «
Transsibériades », le Magasin électrique
- Palazzo Duchi d’Acquaviva, Museo Archeologico, « ALL’EST DELL’EST », Atri
Festival, Italy
- Centre d’Art Contemporain de La Base Sous Marine, Bordeaux, 19ème édition
d’Itinéraires des Photographes Voyageurs, « De Transverses à Transsibériades »
(1991-2009)
- Museo Nacional de Antropología de el Salvador (MUNA), « Tiempo suspendido »,
photographs by the young inmates from Tonacatepeque and Izalco, Salvador,
done during workshops lead by K.Sluban in 2010 with youngsters from maras
(gangs) in prison
2009
- Rencontres d’Arles (award: European Publishers Award for Photography 2009), Arles, FR.
- Photo Beijing 2009, Aura gallery, Beijing, CHN.
- L’Imagerie, Lannion, FR.
2008
- Photography biennale, Lyon, FR.
- Beau Geste gallery, Shanghai, CHN.
2007
- Bolzano Arts Centre, Bolzano, IT.
- Fine-Arts Museum, Caen, FR.
2006
- Museum of Modern Art, Guatemala City, GTM.
- Shanghai Art Museum, Meishuguan, CHN.
- National Museum, Krakow, PL.
2005
- Photography Museum, Helsinki, FIN.
- National Museum of Estonia, Tallin, EST.
2004
- Millennium Museum for Contemporary Art, Beijing, CHN.
- Gallery of Art of the Union of Artists, Riga, LV.
- Festival Chroniques Nomades, Honfleur, FR.
- Cloître St.-Louis Avignon, FR.
2003
- Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, SLO.
- International Festival of Photography Pingyao, CHN.
2001
- Photography gallery, Santo-Domingo, DOM.
- Centre Méditerranéen de la Photographie, Bastia, FR.
- Historical Museum of Tbilissi, “The Caravanserail” gallery, Tbilissi, GE.
2000 – 1994
- FNAC Photo Galleries (nagrada Prix Niepce), FR.
- Pouchkine Museum, Odessa, UK.
- Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Mois de la Photo Paris, Paris, FR.
- Tokyo Today, Metropolitan Museum of Photography of Tokyo. Travelling exhibition throughout Japan and Europe.
- D’Est en Ouest, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Beaubourg-Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR.
