Xavier Lambours lives and works in Paris. He made his debut in the newspaper Hara Kiri in the 70s. From the 1980s onwards, he has done many portraits for the daily, weekly and monthly press, Libération, Actuel, VSD, Le Monde, Condé Nast Traveler, Géo, SoFilm... etc.
Exhibited notably at Rencontres d'Arles, Visa pour l'image, Pompidou Center and the National Center of Photography, he is also the winner of the Kodak Prize, in 1989; the Villa Kujoyama, in 1992; received the Niepce Prize, in 1994; and the Delmas Prize of the Academy of Fine Arts, in 2011. In 1998, Louis-Vuitton gave him carte blanche for a year, from which the book Rebonds was published. The Maison Européenne de la Photographie devoted a retrospective to him in 2011. Author of several books (Ciné-Monde, Figures du Limousin, Gaijin Story, Vélolavie, Cinéma...), he also directed three photo fictions (L'Enigme du fétiche noir for Télérama, Petite musique de la nuit and La Mémoire des scorpions in the collection Le sourire qui mord at Gallimard). After the attacks of 2015, he released Dans le ventre de Hara Kiri with photographer Arnaud Baumann.
He exhibited at his residency at the Cultural Center of Sanaa (2004-2006), the Cité internationale des arts (2008-2009). He presents, following his residency at the Capsule, in Le Bourget (2015-2016), a photo novel: On a marché sur la Terre, based on an adventure of his double, Reivax. In 2018, he obtained a residency in Saillon, in the Swiss Valais.
Among his many activities, he directed a short film, La Cicatrice (1987) that was broadcast on La Sept/Arte; he produced an opera at the Radio France Montpellier festival, Bruno Maderna's Le Satyricon (1987); Lundi des patates (Canal+, 1997); Mots d'elles (Les Poissons volants); and a documentary co-directed with Valery Gaillard on his work of photographed nudes during his stay at the Cité internationale des Arts.
Xavier Lambours is represented by Signatures, a photographic company.
