Antoine Tempé
La Maison de l'Afrique 90 rue bonaparte 75006 Paris France
Born and raised in France, Antoine Tempé moved to New York in 1983, where he became immediately fascinated by the multicultural character of the city. In the early 90s, after first contemplating a career in dance, he started taking photographs. Encouraged by regular publications in the French PHOTO and his initial success documenting New York nightlife for European magazines, he began photographing dancers in his studio. He was soon working with various New York based dance companies both on commercial and personal projects, with his photographs appearing in American and European publications.
In the year 2000, Antoine embarked on a one-year photographic journey through West Africa and Madagascar. This and subsequent trips to the continent lay the foundation for several bodies of work, among which Dancers of Africa, Faces of Africa and African Journey have been exhibited worldwide. A selection from these three series is being exhibited at La Maison de l'Afrique.
Since then he has split his time between Paris, West Africa, Brazil and New York, advancing several other personal projects while shooting commercial assignments, covering dance festivals or teaching photography workshops.
In 2008 Antoine Tempé published the book Afrique, danse contemporaine (Éditions Cercle d Art/Centre National de la Danse) in collaboration with choreographer Salia Sanou.