Français:
Good Guy Boris est journaliste, fondateur du site The Grifters.
Il démarre sa carrière par la photographie argentique dès l’adolescence, période à laquelle il se retrouve, comme il le dira lui-même: « Avec les mauvaises personnes au bon moment ». En effet Boris est né et a grandi au cœur de l’Europe de l’Est, dans une région sinistrée où la débrouillardise et la corruption étaient et sont encore omniprésentes.
Il se souvient avec nostalgie de son adolescence et la compare avec force romantisme à des fragments de vie arrachés aux films d’Emir Kusturica ou de Guy Ritchie, se retrouvant en permanence entouré de personnages extraordinaires, au milieu d’aventures rocambolesques.
Son intérêt pour la sociologie et la criminologie l’amèneront à découvrir des univers chaotiques comme celui crime organisé. Il partira à la rencontre de personnages pittoresques aux caractères ciselés ; des hommes de main qui tiennent les coins de rue, des toxicomanes, en passant par les joueurs compulsifs, et enfin les graffeurs. Tous ces gens, que la société rejette et désigne comme marginaux, sans morale ni scrupules, révéleront au photographe leur face cachée : le beauté, leur sincérité, ainsi qu’une virtuosité évidente que d’autres semblent ignorer.
Quelques années plus tard, Boris présentera une sélection de ses archives aux médias, mais ses photos passeront toutes à la trappe, parfois rejetées, le plus souvent censurées. Cet échec n'étouffera pas pour autant ses convictions, ni ses opinions, et Boris décidera en réponse de créer sa propre tribune : un blog de photojournalisme, appelé à juste titre The Grifters (les Arnaqueurs) et à partir duquel il pourra s’exprimer et sensibiliser le public sur sa propre vision du monde qui l’entoure. Il publiera le photoreportage auquel il a consacré plus de 10 ans de sa vie : Un melting pot de projets frondeurs, présentés de manière si provocatrice qu'il attirera inévitablement les chasseurs de tendances. Ainsi The Grifters s’est depuis forgé la réputation d’être un blog sans compromis consacré au style de vie « Graffiti », différencié et incisif.
En 2011, Boris prend conscience du monde qui l’entoure. Il décide alors de prendre du recul et quitte la barbarie de son écosystème pour changer radicalement de vie et d’orientation artistique. Avec pour seul bagage un sac à dos, pour seule richesse un rêve en tête, il s'installe à Paris, capitale de l’art et de la mode, la seule qui trouve grâce à ses yeux.
Son rêve ? Créer un projet pédagogique qui divertira tout en instruisant la jeunesse « génération sacrifiée » ; lui faire ouvrir les yeux sur le monde et toutes les facettes qu’elle revêt, notamment celles dont Boris a été le témoin en grandissant.
Boris organise enfin sa première et attendue exposition intitulée The Paradigm Shift.
The Paradigm Shift est une confrontation visuelle entre le public, sa perception de la réalité face aux images qui lui sont présentées et la vision décalée mais concrète dont Boris fut le témoin adolescent en capturant ces instants. Cette exposition encourage le public à remettre en question sa propre vision monde, à combattre les idées reçues. Elle ouvre le débat sur la manière dont chacun de nous matérialisons certains scénarios à travers le filtre de nos propres préjugés. L'artiste nous emmène dans un voyage de vices et de vertus, illustrant les ambiances et l’énergie présentes dans le plus rebel et populaire mouvement actuel: Le Graffiti. Ses œuvres transmettent au public l’expérience du graffiti in situ, dans son jus, la même combinaison divine de frisson et de réjouissance que Boris a vécue en travaillant avec certains des graffeurs les plus reconnus au monde, ceux sur lesquels la société a posé l’étiquette « Vandale » voire « Hors-la-loi ». Ceux-là même qui créent leurs « œuvres » avec un enthousiasme sans équivoque, sans gain financier à la clé et dans des endroits insolites où personne ne s’aventure jamais. Ainsi Boris à travers l’exposition The Paradigm Shift vous offre sur un plateau leur « Orgasme Visuel», une célébration cérémonieuse de l'ego, pour laquelle la société n'offre pour seul récompense que des pénalités : amendes et peines de prison.
Aujourd’hui, The Grifters est une source omniprésente de tout ce qui touche au style de vie Urbain, un véritable couteau suisse de la culture Graffiti. Boris lui-même est maintenant considéré comme l'une des personnalités les plus remarquées de la scène du graffiti Parisien.
Récemment libéré de prison après 4 mois de détention préventive pour des chefs d'inculpation tel qu’Association de malfaiteurs et Dégradations, il vous livre un témoignage rare à travers sa propre lecture de la société.
Vernissage le 06 décembre à partir de 19h00
Galerie Le Paris Urbain,
51 rue de l'Echiquier, Paris 75010
Métro ligne 8/9 - Bonne Nouvelle
Curateurs: Amine Bouziane & Stefano Incollingo
© Amine Bouziane
English:
Good Guy Boris is a journalist and creator of The Grifters. He started his career in his early teenage years shooting film when he found himself, as he explains: ‘With the wrong people at the right time’. Boris was born and raised in the heartlands of Eastern Europe, where hustling and corruption was, and continues to be, rife and commonplace.
Boris can recall his adolescence fondly and romantically likens it to flashes from an Emir Kusturica or a Guy Ritchie movie, constantly finding himself surrounded by extraordinary characters and in the middle of ridiculous ventures. His interest into the realms of sociology and criminology brought him to discover the local underworld of both organized, and disorganized crime. These would include a wide variety of colorful characters, from street level hustlers, drug addicts, compulsive gamblers and graffiti writers. These kinds of people, that society collectively labels as rejects and devoid of morality, revealed to the photographer a hidden but sincere beauty, an apparent virtuosity that others seemingly ignored.
A few years later, Boris presented a selection of his archives to both mainstream and alternative medias; his pictures ended up either censured or rejected. These denials didn’t dampen his belief nor point of view, and he therefore decided to create his own platform - an original photojournalism blog aptly named The Grifters. Here he posted the photo-diary he had been working on for the best part of a decade. A confronting compilation of material, presented in such a provocative way, as such inevitably attracted the attention of the cool-hunters, and The Grifters became known as one of the Internet's most outstanding graffiti lifestyle blogs.
After events that gave way to a change in his dynamic, Boris decided to leave the viciousness of his ecosystem and to change the direction of his work, relocating to the European capital of art and fashion: Paris. He arrived in France carrying only a backpack and a dream; to create a multimedia project that would both entertain and educate young people lost in the destructive habits Boris witnessed growing up. Today, The Grifters is known as a ubiquitous source of all things relating to the urban lifestyle, a figurative Swiss army knife of Graffiti culture. Boris is now himself considered to be one of the most remarkable personas in the Parisian graffiti scene.
Recently released from prison, after 4 months remanded in custody for charges including Conspiracy and Vandalism, Boris has found himself organizing his first and long awaited exhibition entitled
“The Paradigm Shift”
The Paradigm Shift is a visual confrontation that engages the viewer to assess how they perceive their own reality, by highlighting their perception of reality from a different vantage point. The exhibition will encourage the viewer to question their perceptions and preconceptions, and how we absorb scenarios through a filter of personal prejudices. The artist takes us on a journey of virtue and vice, illustrating the ambiance and the energy found in one of the most rebellious and popular movements today - Graffiti. These artworks effectively transmit to the viewer the experience, the same divine combination of thrill and delightfulness that Boris discovered while working with some of the world's most dedicated graffiti writers, the ones that society had previously labelled as vandals and outlaws. Their artworks are accomplished with an unconditional enthusiasm, in places where others would not dare to approach. They create these with no financial gain in mind, only for the sake of the personal ‘eyegasm’; a ceremonious celebration of the ego, to which society only awards a penalty, and time behind bars.
Boris can recall his adolescence fondly and romantically likens it to flashes from an Emir Kusturica or a Guy Ritchie movie, constantly finding himself surrounded by extraordinary characters and in the middle of ridiculous ventures. His interest into the realms of sociology and criminology brought him to discover the local underworld of both organized, and disorganized crime. These would include a wide variety of colorful characters, from street level hustlers, drug addicts, compulsive gamblers and graffiti writers. These kinds of people, that society collectively labels as rejects and devoid of morality, revealed to the photographer a hidden but sincere beauty, an apparent virtuosity that others seemingly ignored.
A few years later, Boris presented a selection of his archives to both mainstream and alternative medias; his pictures ended up either censured or rejected. These denials didn’t dampen his belief nor point of view, and he therefore decided to create his own platform - an original photojournalism blog aptly named The Grifters. Here he posted the photo-diary he had been working on for the best part of a decade. A confronting compilation of material, presented in such a provocative way, as such inevitably attracted the attention of the cool-hunters, and The Grifters became known as one of the Internet's most outstanding graffiti lifestyle blogs.
After events that gave way to a change in his dynamic, Boris decided to leave the viciousness of his ecosystem and to change the direction of his work, relocating to the European capital of art and fashion: Paris. He arrived in France carrying only a backpack and a dream; to create a multimedia project that would both entertain and educate young people lost in the destructive habits Boris witnessed growing up. Today, The Grifters is known as a ubiquitous source of all things relating to the urban lifestyle, a figurative Swiss army knife of Graffiti culture. Boris is now himself considered to be one of the most remarkable personas in the Parisian graffiti scene.
Recently released from prison, after 4 months remanded in custody for charges including Conspiracy and Vandalism, Boris has found himself organizing his first and long awaited exhibition entitled
“The Paradigm Shift”
The Paradigm Shift is a visual confrontation that engages the viewer to assess how they perceive their own reality, by highlighting their perception of reality from a different vantage point. The exhibition will encourage the viewer to question their perceptions and preconceptions, and how we absorb scenarios through a filter of personal prejudices. The artist takes us on a journey of virtue and vice, illustrating the ambiance and the energy found in one of the most rebellious and popular movements today - Graffiti. These artworks effectively transmit to the viewer the experience, the same divine combination of thrill and delightfulness that Boris discovered while working with some of the world's most dedicated graffiti writers, the ones that society had previously labelled as vandals and outlaws. Their artworks are accomplished with an unconditional enthusiasm, in places where others would not dare to approach. They create these with no financial gain in mind, only for the sake of the personal ‘eyegasm’; a ceremonious celebration of the ego, to which society only awards a penalty, and time behind bars.
Gallery opening 06 December at 19h00
Gallery 'Le Paris Urbain',
51 Rue de l'echiquier,
Paris 75010
Gallery 'Le Paris Urbain',
51 Rue de l'echiquier,
Paris 75010
Metro (8,9) Station: Grand Boulevard.
