American photographer Steve McCurry’s photos are currently on display in Paris at Galerie Frédéric Got …
Riding the metro in Paris daily, you’re bombarded by dozens of billboard advertisements for concerts, plays, exhibits, package deals for cruises to Morocco. Like in most big cities, it’s so much part of the urban scenery, you barely take note. So when an image does manage to grab you while you ride the train, and not once but over and over again, you find out about it. Such was the case with the image of a vividly red-faced Indian boy that stared out at me every morning as I rode to class. When I finally succumbed to the power of his image, I found myself heading over to the Steve McCurry exhibit at la Galerie Frédéric Got.
Steve McCurry is an American photographer of renown whose color photography of Iran, Iraq, former Yugoslavia, Beirut, Cambodia, Tibet and Afghanistan has been published in most major magazines. Some images, featured regularly in National Geographic, are so well known they have become icons. The best known is probably his “Afghan Girl,” a portrait of a girl from the Nasir Bagh refugee camp near Peshawar. Dressed in red garb, her brilliant green eyes, open wide, convey a sense of frozen distrust and defensiveness.
“Afghan girl” is among the photographs on view at the Paris exhibit, which is a small collection of McCurry’s work depicting scenes from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, India, Cambodia and Tibet. Most of the pictures displayed here are not scenes of conflict but rather, slices of ordinary yet extraordinary life. “Sleeping with Snakes” shows a Cambodian woman and her baby curled up in a hammock, resting peacefully while a giant cobra lurks directly underneath them. “Tailor in Monsoon” depicts a man’s head and his sewing machine floating above water. Despite being caught in the flood, a peaceful smile reigns on his face. A favorite of mine is a photo of three young boys sitting on a bench outside the Sera Monastery in Bylakuppi, India. Although the boys are dressed in what looks like monastic dress, far from engaging in meditation or other such contemplative activities, one holds a toy gun pointed at himself while the other two crouch enthusiastically over Gameboys.
McCurry started out working at a newspaper, only to leave for India in search of new stimulation. The two years he spent there taught him to watch and wait on life. If you wait, he realized, “people will forget your camera and the soul will drift up to view.”
Galerie Frédéric Got, 35/37 rue de Seine, Paris 6th
This article was published Wednesday, August 22, 2007.
