synopsis
Omar Victor Diop stands out for his work combining visual arts, fashion and photographic portraiture. In 2022, with the aim of combining the creative residency for the Planches Contact festival and the creation of a title in the Fashion Eye collection, he was invited to Deauville and offered a stroll through the streets of this city where Normandy meets the Atlantic Ocean. He redesigned and sublimated the houses and buildings of Deauville to make them the scene of a personal odyssey, punctuated by characters and doubles who are all manifestations of his thoughts as a Dakar traveler. This new series, perhaps the first truly autobiographical of its author, brings together present and past, composite identities, cultural heritages and traditions.
technical information
Publisher : Fondation Louis Vuitton
2023
120 pages
dimensions : 24 x 31
language : french / english
2023
120 pages
dimensions : 24 x 31
language : french / english
about Omar Victor Diop
Regarded as one of the most important Senegalese photographers of his generation, Omar Victor Diop was born in Dakar in 1980 and was brought up there. He now divides his time between his birthplace and Paris.
From a very early age, Diop cultivated his vivid imagination as much through photography as through literature and history, leading him to hone his talent in several art forms, from collage and creative writing to fashion and textile design. His influences include the major African portrait artists Mama Casset, Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé, the French creator Jean-Paul Goude, as well as a number of Flemish and Spanish painters of the Renaissance.
At his family’s urging and despite his passion for arts, Diop pursued graduate studies in corporate communications and project management in Dakar and Paris and worked at a consulting firm in 2006 before joining a multinational company operating in Africa, a position he would soon leave to fully dedicate himself to his artistic practice.
An invitation to take part in the ninth edition of the Pan-African photography biennial Rencontres de Bamako (Bamako Encounters), held in 2011 in Mali, marked the true beginning of Diop’s professional career as a photographer.
His series featured at this event, Fashion 2112, le futur du Beau, draws connections between ecological concerns and fashion photography. This was followed by The Studio of Vanities, launched in 2012 and still ongoing, a portrait series showcasing young and self-confident urban creatives on the African continent.
In 2014, with Diaspora, Diop dived into self-portraiture, recasting representations of famous Africans having left their mark on world history.
Liberty from 2016 speaks to pivotal moments in the history of Black protest.
With his series Allegoria from 2021, he focuses attention again on the need to protect the environment and the importance of climate action. Diop’s work is now part of major institutions collections — such as the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, the Brooklyn Museum in the United States, the Musée
de la Photographie de Saint-Louis in Senegal — and has been shown in exhibitions at high-profile international events, such as Paris Photo and the Rencontres d’Arles in France, the New York edition of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair and Kyotographie in Japan. His images also appear regularly in magazines around the world, among them Harper’s Bazaar,
Spanish Vogue and Madame Figaro. In addition, as an art director, Diop has led campaigns for many African fashion designers, but also for French brands like Lancel and Pernod Ricard. His first monograph, Omar Victor Diop, was published by 5 Continents Editions in 2021. He is represented by Galerie MAGNIN-A in Paris.
find / buy the book
book in my collection
Publisher : Fondation Louis Vuitton
2023 (1st edition)
2023 (1st edition)