“There is no reason why I should be obliged to accept this imperfect and boring world—which was handed to me at birth—without attempting to improve it to the best of my ability. We are always subject to circumstances, though in different ways. To do nothing is disheartening. To play a role is to take one’s century into one’s own hands—to become completely immersed in it.”
— Gilles Caron, letter to his mother, 1960
Marking its first participation in the main sector of Paris Photo, and formalizing its collaboration with the Gilles Caron Foundation and the photographer’s family, Galerie Anne-Laure Buffard is pleased to present Un Monde Imparfait (“An Imperfect World”)—a solo exhibition dedicated to Gilles Caron, an iconic figure in press photography and war reportage. The powerful body of work by this legendary photographer—who met an untimely death in Cambodia in 1970 and stands as an heir to the legacies of Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa—remains a profound source of inspiration for countless artists, photographers, and filmmakers, most notably Stanley Kubrick and Francis Ford Coppola.
Developed in collaboration with the Gilles Caron Foundation, the exhibition brings together a collection of images that left an indelible mark on the collective memory between 1965 and 1970. These works embrace the intersections of time and space between photographs taken in Europe—capturing movements of emancipation (May 1968, a speech by Martin Luther King, the filming of Nouvelle Vague cinema, the yéyé music scene)—and those documenting the conflicts of the 1960s that helped shape the world we live in today (the Six-Day War, the Biafran War, the Vietnam War, etc.). It is this “imperfect world” that Gilles Caron chose to embrace heart and soul, making him an essential and active witness to history in the making.
One room is dedicated to enlarged contact sheets, a unique collection of Cibachrome prints, and a number of rare vintage prints that have survived to the present day.