Renowned photographer Yiorgis Yerolymbos was chosen to photograph the new Louvre Museum in Abu-Dhabi, while he recently captured a series of iconic Athenian spots through his lens, within the framework of Wallpaper City Guide Athens 2020.

In the living-room of his family’s house, in Thessaloniki’s Harilaou district, one couldn’t help but notice the painting Red Cavalry Riding, by the Russian avant-garde’s leading figure Kazimir Malevich, a masterpiece visually structured in zones. This zoning technique is a key element to the entire body of work of the distinguished Greek photographer Yiorgis Yerolymbos, who never ceases to evolve and enrich his codes, serving the art of landscape photography with passion and devotion for some twenty years.

Yerolymbos is currently faced with the biggest challenge of his career, as he has been assigned to photograph the new Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi, a project scheduled for next winter that will comprise a portfolio of 80 to 100 photos, which will be included in the museum’s official catalogue. Yerolymbos and the museum’s architect Jean Nouvel are no strangers, as they have collaborated in the past, on the account of “White Walls”, Nicosia’s landmark high-rise building, also designed by Nouvel.

As Yerolymbos explains, the project’s level of difficulty is really high as the new Louvre museum’s vault is full of openings allowing sunbeams of light to enter through the roof: “This sharp contrast created through the co-existence of shade and light is the problem I need to tackle.” This project coincides with the release of Wallpaper City Guide Athens 2020, where Yerolymbos has captured a series of iconic Athenian building and spots. Yet another “merit badge”, as he calls it, expressing his delight at collaborating with this prestigious international magazine.

Yerolymbos, born in Paris in 1973, studied Photography in Athens and Architecture in Thessaloniki. He concluded his post-graduate studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London, went on to conduct his PhD at the University of Derby, while in 2008, after having received a Fulbright scholarship, he photographed his way across the USA, travelling from one coast to the other. If we were to highlight a couple more of his career-defining projects, those would be the photographic expeditions of Egnatia Odos, as well as of Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center’s erection, the latter leading to the photo essay Orthographs, published by Yale University Press, featuring all stages of the construction, from the work site all the way up to the center’s completion.

One of the key pillars of his visual philosophy can be traced in the words of the American photographer Robert Adams, according to whom landscape photography can offer three varieties: geography, autobiography and metaphor. “In reality, what we strive to do, is condense the past, the present and the future in a single picture.” Ιn other words, the notions of before, now and after that weave the incessant thread of life.