Paolo Pellegrin
“As I was dying”
Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC)
NLG 4th floor Atrium
1 – 31 August 2021
Paolo Pellegrin is this year’s Athens Photo World Honorary Photographer
The exhibition “As I was Dying” is based on his book by the same title which was published in France in 2007 but also includes later work by the photographer.
Pellegrin’s suggestive gaze brings the viewer to the forefront of the human drama of contemporary history
From far away Japan, Indonesia and Afghanistan to the neighboring Albania and the plight of Kosovo, Pellegrin captures moments of pain, struggle and strength. Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Ethiopia, Liberia, Sudan, Angola, Haiti, Kosovo, Cuba, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Vatican, France, different people and places parade in Pellegrin’s black and white frame shaking us with the realization that pain and persecution know no color, race or end. Light, darkness, bodies and glances take the leading roles in Pellegrin’s pictures through unsual composition and with an intensity that flows from his photogrpahs almost “yelling” at the viewers, demanding their attention and consideration.
Paolo Pellegrin was born in 1964 in Rome. He studied architecture at L’Università la Sapienza, before studying photography at Istituto Italiano di Fotografia. Between 1991 and 2001 Pellegrin was represented by Agence VU in Paris. In 2001 he became a Magnum Photos nominee and a full member in 2005. He was a contract photographer for Newsweek for ten years.
Pellegrin is a winner of many awards, including eleven World Press Photo awards and numerous POY awards, a Leica Medal of Excellence, an Olivier Rebbot Award, the Hansel-Meith Preis, the Dr. Erich Salomon Award and the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award. In 2006, he was assigned the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography.
In thirty years of work he has been focused on issues connected to the human condition, from wars to the effects of global climate change, trying to be a witness for our times.
He lives in London.
His books include Alps – Aosta Valley (Forte di Bard editore. Italy, 2019); Paolo Pellegrin, curated by Germano Celant (Silvana Editoriale, Italy, 2018), Terre Spezzate (Contrasto, Italy, 2016); 100 Photos of Paolo Pellegrin for Press Freedom (Reporters Sans Frontières, France, 2013); Paolo Pellegrin (Kunstfoyer der Versicherungskammer Bayern, Germany, 2012); Dies Irae (Contrasto, Italy, 2011); Photo Poche (Actes Sud, France, 2010); As I Was Dying (Actes Sud, France, 2007); Double Blind (Trolley, UK, 2007); Kosovo 1999-2000: The Flight of Reason (Trolley, UK, 2002); L’au-delà est là (Le Point du Jour, France, 2001); Cambogia (Federico Motta Editore, Italy, 1998), Bambini (Sinnos, Italy, 1997).
Since 1997 Pellegrin’s work has been shown to fifty solo and 27 group exhibitions in Europe, U.S.A., Australia and Hong Kong.
The exhibition will be presented from the 1st to the 31st of August in the atrium of the 4th floor of the National Library of Greece, at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) with a donation by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), sponsored by the Italian Institute of Education in Athens.