Info
Biography
David Fathi is a French artist based in Paris. Working across photography, moving image, installation and artist books, he investigates how scientific, historical and media archives construct knowledge.
Trained in computer science, he approaches images as systems that can be rearranged, manipulated and made to contradict themselves. His projects move between documentary research and fiction, using humour, appropriation and visual ambiguity to expose the gaps, biases and absurdities within supposedly authoritative records.
His work has been presented at Les Rencontres d’Arles, BredaPhoto, Fotofestiwal, Belfast Exposed and PhotoESPAÑA, among other institutions and festivals.
Critical text
“Two viewpoints to make sense of the world. In this way David Fathi describes his guiding line. Holding a Master’s degree in Computer Science, he combines artistic practice and engineering career with the same affinity for science and the limits of knowledge.
His work, be it still or moving image, takes root in various archives and visual databases, depending on the subject, blurring the appropriationist work in the boundaries between documentary and contemporary art. With an intense passion for odd and conflicting facts, David Fathi often tackles them with a biting sense of humour. He hijacks images and reveals gaps and absurdities in the stories he recounts: a subversive visual critique.
David Fathi pulls back the curtain, to open up meaning to what is behind the scenes: to counteract documented proof as much as to create new information. At the crossroads of solemnity, banality and absurdity, his images assert themselves as political. […] Might David Fathi be trying to reintroduce a spark of idealism in our current cynicism?”
— From document to a politic of image, Aurélie Cavanna, January 2019
Selected solo shows
2024
- Feedback Loop, Punctum Gallery — Tallinn, EE
2023
- The Living Govern the Dead, Festival du Journalisme — Couthures, FR
- The Dead Govern the Living, Les Rencontres de la Jeune Photographie Internationale — Niort, FR
2020
- Locus of Control (As Above So Below + Wolfgang), Arthuis — Brussels, BE
2019
- The Last Road of the Immortal Woman, Fotofestiwal — Lodz, PL
2018
- The Dead Govern the Living, Photo Saint-Germain / Maison Auguste Comte — Paris, FR
- The Last Road of the Immortal Woman, BredaPhoto — Breda, NL
2017
- Wolfgang, Nucleus, Noorderlicht Festival — Groningen, NL
- The Last Road of the Immortal Woman, Les Rencontres d'Arles — Arles, FR
- Wolfgang, ou le principe d'exclusion, La Galerie Particulière — Brussels, BE
2016
- Wolfgang, ou le principe d'exclusion, La Galerie Particulière 2 — Paris, FR
Selected group shows
2026
- (Faire) Face au Nucléaire, Le Delta — Namur, BE
2025
- Interrogative AI, Incheon Art Platform — Incheon, KR
- AImagine, Le Hangar — Brussels, BE
2023
- The Machine Seems to Need a Ghost, unRepresented by Approche — Paris, FR
2019
- Récits Invisibles, La Chapelle Saint-Jacques — Saint-Gaudens, FR
- Vis à Vis, Fotodoks — Lothringer13 — Munich, DE
- Little Boy's Luminous Legacies, Lothringer13 — Munich, DE
- SCIENCE fictions, Centre Photographique — Rouen, FR
2018
- Discoveries of the Meeting Place, Fotofest Biennial — Houston, USA
2017
- Privacy and Tranquillity, Presence Festival — Saint Petersburg, RU
- Observations, Belfast Exposed — Belfast, UK
- Voodoo Gravity, PhotoESPAÑA — Madrid, ES
- Archivi del Futuro, Fotografia Europea — Reggio Emilia, IT
- Extreme, Les Journées Photographiques — Bienne, CH
2016
- Profound Silence, Jimei x Arles — Jimei, CN
- Re-Vision, Fotopub — Novo Mesto, SI
- Grand Prix Fotofestiwal — Lodz, PL
2015
- Prix Levallois — Levallois-Perret, FR
- Power & Illusion, Encontros da Imagem — Braga, PT
- Money, Les Nuits Photographiques — Paris, FR
- Les Rencontres de la Jeune Photographie Internationale, Villa Pérochon — Niort, FR
- Evidence, Format Festival — Derby, UK
- Festival Circulation(s) — Paris, FR
2014
- Truths, Facts, Fictions, Lies, PhotoIreland — Dublin, IE