Laurent Millet (b. 1968, Roanne, France; lives and works in La Rochelle, France)

My History with Stones (1999)
Double exposure on toned silver gelatin paper, vintage prints
60 x 50 cm
Somnium (2015)
Multilayer prints with monochrome pigment gum from ambrotypes, 2015
variable dimensions.
The Clouds (2025)
Oil prints and ambrotypes
variable dimensions.

Since the 1990s, Laurent Millet has developed a photographic practice grounded in the construction of ephemeral objects, architectures, and situations. Working across photography, sculpture, drawing, and site-specific installation, he builds ephemeral constructions which he then photographs. Presented at OFFSCREEN in a dimensional structure reminiscent of the maquettes he builds to photograph, his works investigate the relationship between human gesture, the constructed object, and the act of seeing.

The three series presented here span more than two decades of this sustained inquiry. My History with Stones (1999) establishes Millet’s early engagement with handmade structures and the relationship between the tangible groundedness of earthy materiality and the oneiric. In Somnium (2015), this investigation shifts toward perception and the unstable boundary between what is seen and what is imagined. The Clouds (2025) extends these concerns through a more explicitly theatrical approach, foregrounding the historical relationship between photography, staging, and illusion.

A fellow of the Casa de Velázquez from 2007 to 2009, Laurent Millet was awarded the Prix Nadar in 2014 for Les Enfantillages Pittoresques (Filigranes Éditions), followed by the Prix Niépce in 2015. In 2025, he was selected for the French national commission “Reinventing Photography,” launched to mark the bicentenary of the invention of photography.

Selected institutional solo exhibitions include Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Angers (2014); Hôtel des Arts, Toulon (2005); and, Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon-sur-Saône (2002). Selected group exhibitions include Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles (2009). Millet’s works are held in collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Fonds national d’art contemporain, and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie.

Founded in 2010, Galerie Binome (Le Marais, Paris) is dedicated to contemporary photography. Its program of exhibitions and international fairs features established and emerging contemporary artists exploring the conceptual and formal boundaries of the medium. In search of new forms in photography, and interested in experimentation with the materiality and media of the image, the selection of works establishes dialogues with sculpture and drawing, or with traditional materials such as ceramics and textiles. The definition and expansion of the photographic field are at the heart of the gallery’s reflections. Member of the Comité professionnel des galeries d’art, Galerie Binome develops numerous collaborations with personalities from the world of art and photography, curators, private and public institutions. In 2023, its director Valérie Cazin was appointed to the Paris Photo selection committee.