Fabrice Monteiro is a Belgian-Beninese visual artist, born in Namur in 1972.
He is part of the Agouda community — descendants of enslaved people who were deported and later returned to West Africa. In Benin, the Agouda are often recognized by their Portuguese-sounding names, remnants of a complex colonial history that continues to shape family identities.
Monteiro grew up in Benin and now lives in Dakar, Senegal.
Originally trained as an industrial engineer, he began his career as a fashion model, an experience that opened the doors to the world of photography. A decisive encounter with New York-based photographer Alfonse Pagano inspired him to make photography his own medium of expression.
Working mainly in series, Monteiro approaches each project through a strong conceptual lens, often tied to issues related to the African continent. While his work crosses genres, photographic installation remains one of his preferred territories — a space where he unfolds a hybrid, poetic, and political universe that challenges perceptions and invites new ways of seeing.
From stylized scenes evoking a bygone past to uncompromising portraits confronting colonial legacies, and dystopian visions of a planet rising against its inhabitants, Monteiro’s images blend striking aesthetics with critical awareness. His photography is as visually refined as it is thought-provoking.
Begun in 2013, his ongoing series The Prophecy lies at the heart of his artistic research. The project addresses the environmental crisis through a distinctly decolonial lens. Deeply sensitive to social injustice, inequality, and the effects of the Anthropocene, Monteiro conceives each iteration of the series as a context-specific work — adapting its narrative to the local realities of the geographies it inhabits. Like a film production, his elaborate scenographic process requires extensive research, collaboration, and craftsmanship.
Represented by Galerie Magnin and Galerie In Camera in Paris, Fabrice Monteiro has exhibited in major institutions such as the Centre Pompidou-Metz, the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, Tate Modern in London, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
His works are part of several public and private collections, including the MuPho (Senegal), MACAAL (Marrakech), MEG (Geneva), Chazen Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), and the Seattle Art Museum, among others.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – Seattle, USA
Musée ethnographique de Genève – MEG – Genève, Switzerland
Museum of Contemporary Photography – Chicago, USA
Musée de la photographie de St- Louis – St Louis, Senegal
Macaal Museum, Fondation Alliances, Marrakesh, Morocco
iziko Museum, Cape Town, South Africa
Williams College Museum of Art
Mott Walsh Collection, Flint, Michigan
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, USA
Liberation, Smithonian Magazine, african arts, jeune Afrique, Le courrier Internationale, GUP Magazine, L’insensé, The british journal of photography, Spiegel,