SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS! Stanley Greene's Intimate Diary in Letters and Polaroids

14 February - 23 March 2024 Galerie de Buci 73 rue de Seine Paris 06

Galerie de Buci's new exhibition pays tribute to a legend of photojournalism Stanley Greene (1949-2017). On his birthday, the gallery is presenting an exhibition entitled SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS! from the personal collection of Anna Shpakova. As curator of the exhibition, she is unveiling to the public for the first time in France a selection of Polaroids taken between April and September 2001, accompanied by love letters from the photographer.

World-famous for his war reportages, Stanley Greene started out as a painter, taking photographs to put together the scenes he painted. In 1971 he became an assistant to a legendary photographer William Eugene Smith, who encouraged him to study photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York and the San Francisco Art Institute. A photographer of American rock scene in the 1970s and a fashion photographer in the 1980s, he didn't really begin photojournalism until 1989, when his photograph Kisses to All, Berlin Wall became a symbol of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Winner of numerous awards such as five World Press Photo Awards, the W. Eugene Smith Fund Grant in 2004 and the Planet International Prize Albert Kahn (PIPAK), and having worked for many major American titles, from the New York Times to Newsweek, Stanley Greene really found his audience in Europe, mastering documentary photography not just for communicating facts, but for conveying his reflections and feelings on the events he has witnessed. He died in Paris in 2017.

"The idea for the exhibition came to me the moment of his death, and the grief it caused made me want to share with the world something special, something sacramental, something you can't hold back. Stanley Greene was a master of the eminent world, which he brought me into with him. As a passionate seeker of truth, a true romantic and poet, he showed me beauty beyond thought," explains Anna. “These letters and Polaroids became evidence of a romance at a time when we were oblivious to the fall of the world."

15 Polaroids and several letters brought together for the occasion form a personal diary that reveals another side of this great master of war photojournalism, showing us the sensitive and poetic nature of the man whose battles and exploits we know so well.

For the exhibition See You in My Dreams! at the Galerie de Buci, curator Anna Shpakova presents this diary as a way of recalling memories and coming to terms with the death of a dear friend. This selection and the staging of the exhibition allow us to penetrate, without being voyeurs, into the intimacy of Stanley Greene's singular rhythm.

This show is a discovery for many, or a rediscovery for some, of a great photographer who knew how to be strong and weak, tough and gentle, but always uncompromising with himself and his art.

For more information: Pavel Morozov pm@buci.gallery +33677806853

Galerie de Buci is open Tuesday to Saturday from 11am till 7 pm www.buci.gallery

La toilette de Tchitchikov(1927)

La toilette de Tchitchikov(1927)