Paris remains a love story
Over the years of our friendship we have constantly returned to Paris: to the books, the films, the music and the visual art. While we were still teenagers we learnt to smoke cigarettes and drink wine in Paris. As adults we learnt more important matters, for example the fact that life is a bloody history and that, time and again, Paris has been the battleground for evil forces. But our love of the city has withstood most of the tests and now, as the pandemic finally permits, we have returned to a city that – at least for the moment - has opened up again.
PARIS OPEN is an expression of love for the workers of the city. Those people who wear their working clothes with pride and with pleasure. Who, every day, put on their uniformes prior to striding off to the baker’s, the chemist’s, restaurants, hospitals or post offices… The people who for the last year and a half have added to their uniforms the obligatory face mask. Following innumerable discussions it was this that we decided we wanted to document: the “uniformed” workers. (At times nothing more than a cloth slung over an arm sufficed for us to take some pictures). The Parisians who have always given this primordial European force so much character and service. Have we experienced this anywhere else in the world? To quote Gertrud Stein: “In Paris a waitress is a waitress is a waitress”.
Our methodology has been elementary. We have politely asked people to participate and when we are agreed we have set to work. We have restricted ourselves to a single lens, the nowadays somewhat unusual and dated FishEye. We have used the existing light. The format has been 50 x 50 throughout. And we have not employed any artistic peculiarities.
These are our temporary friends from the Marais and from Clichy, from Montmartre and along the Seine. We have caught them on the camera and have taken them back to Stockholm. There have been many cameras that have fallen in love with Paris long before our project: Cartier-Bresson, Boubat, Sophie Calle and, not least Sweden’s very own Christer Strömholm. Moving to Paris with intention of living for a while among people with cameras needs no excuse. What was it that Audrey Hepburn maintained? “Paris is always a good idea!” But if you happen to wonder why we made this journey at this specific time, the answer is that we wanted to show you this: that the world is still in existence. The world has by no means forgotten us. The world needs our presence. And we intensify our love of the world in every way we can. Perhaps this has never been as important as it is today. And that is why we are opening this exhibition of photographs from Paris at Galleri Glas in 2021.
