Stanley Greene Stanley Greene was born in Harlem, New York in 1949.The teenage Greene was already politically active, joining the Black Panthers and taking part in the anti-Vietnam movement, refusing to serve there. In 1971 he met the famous photojournalist W Eugene (Gene) Smith (see links, right), who encouraged him and offered him space in his studio. After this first photographic step, he went to Art school for finally left to Paris. On the French city, he used to work for fashion and with a collective of photographers, a work full of poetry which given the book “somnambulist” black and white photographs showing the dark silhouette of people into the Paris’s night. In 1989, when by chance he was on holiday in Berlin and found himself caught in a massive demonstration on the Eastern side. When the secret police (the feared Stasi) came on the scene and threatened to fire at the demonstrators, Greene moved with them to the wall, where he saw a remarkable scene. His picture of "a girl standing on the top of the wall wearing a green tutu, a leather jacket and a Stasi cap, holding a bottle of champagne" was a symbol for the toppling of the wall that was published around the world and catapulted Greene onto the photojournalist’s world. Then arrived the Chechnya, his biggest and heaviest fight, it’s the testimony in pictures of a really slow genocide. Black and white pictures, no artifices, no artistic pretexts. During ten years, Stanley Greene documented the Chechnya’s war in being a first line witness, witness who became profoundly engaged while living two brutal and fatal wars. Their photo gun in bandoleer, the conflict’s photographers are witness constantly in danger. Represented by the photographs Agency VU, Stanley Greene continues to travel all over the world to cover catastrophes, from Irak to Louisiana. Greene also proposes in this encounter a reflection about the photographer profession, about commitment and about the meaning of “testify”. A photographer is also someone who makes the history.
Rendez vous at Visa pour l’Image 2006.
