Alex Van Gelder lives and works in Paris. Based in Africa for several years, Van Gelder is a collector of twentieth- century African photography. Works from his collection were exhibited at Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland in 2006, and Phaidon published 'Life & Afterlife in Benin', a book of the collection, to accompany the exhibition. Van Gelder's previous artistic projects include a portfolio of 18 photographs of Louise Bourgeois's hands in the final years of her life, exhibited at Hauser & Wirth Zurich in 2011. At Bourgeois's invitation, Van Gelder photographed her at her New York townhouse to produce the series. More than purely a portrait project, Bourgeois considered this collaboration to be an extension of her own work. The exhibition was accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, 'Alex Van Gelder – Louise Bourgeois. ARMED FORCES', published by Ediciones Poligrafa and Hauser & Wirth.