Last days at the MEP: meeting Bob Marley

There are certainly still a few reggae—and punk—music fans who haven't yet seen the extraordinary photographs of Bob Marley and Sid Vicious on display at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP). They should hurry, or they'll soon regret it! Presented for the first time in Paris, Dennis Morris's photographs are striking in their truth, simplicity, and sensitivity. This is great photography.

Portraits of the king of reggae and the crazy London punks (Sex Pistols) occupy a large part of the exhibition, but there are also images of Patti Smith, the Stone Roses, Rita Mitsouko, Louis Bertignac, and one of the most famous portraits of Marianne Faithfull. The black and white images of the Jamaican diaspora in London in the 1960s, the subject of his first photojournalism, are also moving. And echo the photographer's own journey.

Dennis Morris emigrated to England from Jamaica in the early 1960s as a child. He was part of the Windrush generation, a term derived from the HMT Empire Windrush, the ship that carried one of the first large groups of Caribbean migrants to Britain after World War II. The young boy joined a church choir in Hackney, sponsored by a wealthy Scotsman.

At the age of eight, his vocation as a photographer was revealed. “Later, when I told my guidance counselor that I wanted to be a photographer, he looked at me like I was crazy. ‘Don’t be silly, kid. There’s no such thing as a Black photographer,’ he told me.”

After starting out as a street photographer, Dennis Morris became a music photographer in high school when he learned that Bob Marley and The Wailers were coming to London for their "Catch a Fire" tour. He skipped class, stood outside the Speakeasy Club, and waited for Marley to arrive to ask permission to photograph him. At the end of the evening, Marley, touched by his presence, invited him to join the tour. It was the beginning of an extraordinary odyssey behind the scenes of the reggae world. And of a body of work that is now widely recognized and exhibited in Beijing, Tokyo, Arles, Kyoto, and London. Not to be missed.

Until May 18, 2025