06 juillet 2009
Rencontres d'Arles: 40 Years of the Rencontres, 40 Years of Ruptures
ARLES.- One way of celebrating 40 years of such a vulnerable enterprise might be to invite all those who have so generously put their work on show here. Yet nostalgia and extolling the great deeds of the past might not to appropriate for the Rencontres, whose history is made up of ongoing creative ventures, photographers pushing back the boundaries of the still image, and uncertain periods of transition. A history that has never been so effervescent.
Even so, the temptation to invite back some of the moving spirits was too strong, and the programme for 2009 falls into two parts:
40 Years of the Rencontres brings together the artistic directors who helped the idea develop over time; celebrates the talent of Robert Delpire, who has given so many artists a helping hand and found so many ways of bringing photography to the public; and pays tribute to Willy Ronis, doyen of our guests photographers and still very much an Arles fan.
40 Years of Ruptures shows photographers whose initial Rencontres exhibitions were controversially at variance with the accepted standards of the time. In the forefront is Duane Michals with a retrospective; and Nan Goldin, whose Ballad of Sexual Dependency has such an impact and who is also inviting various photographer friends along.
A further break comes in the form of the exhibition Without Sanctuary, which uses the collection from the Center for Civic and Human Rights in Atlanta to show the progress represented by the election of Barack Obama since those not so distant days when photographers in the Deep South turned out postcards of lynchings of African-American men and women.
How many believed in Lucien Clergue when, in 1970 – the era of macrame, pottery and meditation classes – he imported the idea of photo workshops from the United States?
Infiltrating the festival as it then was – very much in a good-times Arles tradition – Clergue, with the invaluable backing of Jean-Maurice Rouquette and Michel Tournier, had to assert his vision by setting up an independent structure with no premises and no real budget.
A lover of photography and the arts, but above all of artists, Clergue had gauged the crucial role photography was going to take on, and was determined to set up an exchange community that would get photographers out of their isolation.
This fundamental feature is what has always made the Rencontres unique. At a time when curators often admire the work but dread the artist, the notion of Rencontres ("encounters") adds something to that of the exhibition. This is also why the Rencontres are a collective venture. Right from the start Clergue worked with Paul (Geniet), two Jean-Claudes (Lemagny and Gautrand), Jean (Dieuzaide), Jean-Pierre (Sudre), Denis (Brihat), and very soon after Cornell (Capa), Antoine and Maryse (Cordesse), Luc (Hoffmann) and Roger (Thérond). Even his models would skip their breaks in order to lend a creative hand. More help was not slow in coming: like so many others Bernard (Perrine), Agnès (de Gouvion Saint-Cyr), Françoise (Riss), Serge (Gal), Yann (Le Goff) and Marie-José (Justamond) learned their skills in Arles before moving on to the Paris press and various cultural institutions.
Invitations to leading American photographers brought the few initiates of the time to Arles, while vigorous debate and the workshops spread the Rencontres' reputation. These were political, libertarian, libertine times: Guy le Querrec's workshops were psychological happenings and in Jean-François Bauret's everyone got naked – as they did in Lucien Clergue's, much appreciated for their infinite permutations of three models. The foreign workshop coordinators were loth to leave the wild beaches of the Camargue, the sales staff of the nascent FNAC chain ensured the technical backup alone until they were joined by Ilford, the only company to see which way the wind was blowing – and until Kodak discovered, in Arles, how industry could meet changing artistic needs.
Battles were fought to maintain the availability of quality photographic paper and for the establishment of the toplevel National School of Photography, opened in Arles in 1983 at the instigation of President François Mitterrand. Most crucial of all, however, was the ongoing debate, with ancients and moderns facing off in Arles at the Arlaten, the Archevêché and under a venerable nettle tree in the School courtyard. In the Théâtre Antique you can still hear the echoes: as much booing as there was applause for the projections, with the audience throwing tomatoes and even setting the screens on fire when photographers and directors let them down.
This period had also been marked by the arrival of Christian (Caujolle), Hervé (Guibert), Claude (Nori), Jean- Jacques (Naudet), Gilles (Mora), Joan (Fontcuberta), Philippe (Salaun), Gabriel (Bauret), Alain (Dister) and a host of others who had no qualms about affectionately taunting the founders. Alain Desvergnes came over from Canada to help structure things a little and then found the School.
At a time when museums were opening their doors to belatedly recognised black and white photography – in the late 1980s – Arles innovated with an early move to colour, large formats, photo installations and vernacular photography. Then the Méjan association stepped in with an annual contribution of fast-rising Conceptualism. The exhibitions began to loom larger than the workshops and the Théâtre Antique evening shows. For lack of space, other modes of exhibiting had to be found, the results being, in 1986, the Espace Van Gogh and the Atelier des Forges with Olivier Etcheverry. In Arles the painting-based exhibition conventions and the sacrosanct 30x40 centimetre print went out the window, to be replaced by showings in apartments and under bridges, by photos that were projected, glued to walls or glimpsed through a keyhole.
The first years might have been dominated by the Americans, but Arles also did its bit for Lithuania, Catalonia, China, India and Africa. Neighbouring Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and Spain found regular places on the programme, as did Surrealism, Conceptualism, rock – and even NASA. At the Rencontres diversity was the keyword.
François Barré, in charge of visual arts at the Ministry of Culture, then took the Arles bull by the horns and looked into the Rencontres' future. The resultant recommendations were partially implemented, but then Barré went off to run the Centre Pompidou. There followed some great years of diversification, with astute artistic directors broadening the Rencontres' scope. Barré proved his loyalty by coming back as President, at the request of the Arles mayor: a courageous, generous decision at a time – the brand-new millennium – when collapse and bankruptcy were on the cards and almost no one seemed to care.
Yet the future brought visitors who were more numerous and – something new – stayed longer to soak up all the diversity of what was on offer. Another crucial feature was the Rencontres' speciality of not leaving everything to a single artistic director: each year curators from all over the world are invited along to put on special exhibitions. Thanks to the LUMA Foundation, redevelopment of the Parc des Ateliers (the railway workshops) is about to make a great leap forward, notably in respect of the presentation of exhibitions. By way of an introduction LUMA has invited artist Roni Horn to put a new project on show.
And last but not least the future has turned out to hinge on the educational side: more workshops, conferences, discussions and the Back to School with Pictures programme that has been such an unqualified success with teachers.
Moreover, despite the difficult times, the Rencontres special partners – among them SFR, FNAC, Olympus and Hermès – have made new pledges of loyalty.
The 2009 programme reflects the work of now stable, experienced teams who achieve the annual tour de force of providing 60 exhibitions and all sorts of other events with strictly limited means.
Léon Herschtritt, Berlin Wall, Christmas 1961. © Rencontres Arles
Denis Darzacq, Hyper 08, 2007. Courtesy VU’ la galerie
Commentaires
Arles Photo
40 Ans de rencontres 2009
”Les Rencontres Arles Photographie” Arles (Francia)
dal 7 luglio al 12 settembre 2009
In questo Festival Internazionale di Fotografia , ”Les Rencontres Arles Photographie” il principale interesse è la fotografia, sia digitale o analogica, o con differenti mezzi di espressione . Il mezzo più frequente per rappresentare le opere è sicuramente la carta, ma anche alluminio, cartone , forex , ecc , diverse le dimensioni e tecniche tra tante anche il "collage", ma anche proiezioni video sia pubbliche che in luoghi privati , ambientate con musica di sottofondo. Oppure ritocchi in photoshop, trasformando un lavoro di fotografia in un'opera multidisciplinaria. Ma la cosa più interessante è la varietà delle tematiche ,abbordate da tanto diverse ottiche di nazionalità , possono trovarsi: Scene di vita urbana, sempre nell'urbanistica architetture di diversi luoghi del pianeta, la moda, i ritratti, i paesaggi , la vita di gruppo sociale ,scene di vita privata , paesaggi soleggiati, l'omosessualità, la prostituzione, la tossicodipendenza, la guerra in Europa e altrove nel mondo, la povertà nei sobborghi di New York, lo sport, la vita nei paesi africani, l'inquinamento, la politica, per menzionare alcuni, sono parte dei temi favoriti della fotografia contemporanea che oggigiorno circola nel mercato dell'arte e che, fraternità, l'uguaglianza e la libertà sembra siano i temi preferiti dai fotografi. La parte del Leone in questo festival lo fa sicuramente Nan Goldin , la quale presenta all’interno del Festival di Fotografia la sua ricerca artistica da sempre incentrata sul suo vissuto privato e su quello delle persone a lei più vicine.Una storia che passa dalla vita borghese di una famiglia bostoniana all’underground della New York degli anni 80, dove Nan formerà una nuova famiglia allargata composta da personaggi dalle esistenze difficili, ma lei preferisce immergersi in un’ambiente in cui la verità, per quanto dolorosa, scandalosa, viene mostrata anziché nascosta. Nelle sue foto le persone si mostrano per quello che sono con tutte le debolezze, i vizi, le sregolatezze. Condivide le sue esperienze più intime attraverso immagini spesso molto dure e dirette che ci mostrano la vita che tutti facciamo finta che non esista: malati terminali di aids, scene di violenza domestica o familiare , l’universo del travestimento, cliniche per la disintossicazione dalle droghe. La forte dimensione fisica-carnale delle immagini anche se molto esplicita, ci permette di entrare in contatto con la vita di queste persone, di sentirne quasi gli odori (sinestetico) , ma l’attenzione è rivolta a cogliere nei loro gesti, nei loro sguardi, nei loro amplessi, la natura del legame che li unisce. Molto interessante l’installazione e video immagini che propone all’interno di una chiesa gotica sconsacrata nel centro cittadino di Arles , un legame complesso fatto di luce e di ombra, di gioia,di morbosità e dipendenza che descrive l’amore nelle sue esperienze vissute nella sua vita d’artista e in quella familiare. Celebrato con 80 immagini (all'Eglise Sainte-Anne fino al 30 agosto) Willy Ronis è al centro di una restrospettiva che raccoglie gli scatti che più hanno segnato il suo percorso. Nato nel 1910 a Parigi . Interessante sono i lavori fotografici soprattutto le sue sequenze , del fotografo Duane Michals , così pure le foto dei grandi ritratti di Brian Griffin e di Yury Toroptsov , o quelle del fotografo Ken Damy a la Roquette e al Parc des Ateliers , ex capannoni deposito e di ristrutturazione delle vecchie ferrovie francesi , interessante complesso di architettura industriale dei primi novecento , spazio molto simile al nostro Arsenale veneziano. In questi spazi oltre alla fotografia , erano organizzate delle proiezioni fotografiche durante la notte “delle proiezioni” tra cui anche il video di Nan Goldin “the ballade of sexsual dependency” . Altra artista donna di particolare interesse è la giovane fotografa slovacca di grande talento Magda Stanova ,con le sue (Dan l’ombres de la photographie). Sempre negli spazi al Parc des Ateliers una particolare e provocatoria installazione del fotografo svizzero Renè Burì ,la sua installazione costringeva il publico a una visione delle sue fotografie (b.n.) , in un box nero e completamente al buio , quindi per visualizzare le opere ci si doveva improvvisare con fonti luminose , quali telefonini , pile , ecc. Nel nostro percorso di visita alle varie mostre nel centro della cittadina di Arles , si può ben capire perché Van Gogh abbia scelto di soggiornare in questi luoghi per così parecchio tempo , per questa particolare luce per la storicità di questa bellissima città (di fondazione romana) , che in questi ultimi quarant’anni ha concentrato un così splendido festival e una così alta presenza di artisti e di fotografi . Dal 7 di Luglio al 13 settembre, Arles ed i suoi abitanti si preparano per accogliere 66 esposizioni tra le sue strette strade, cinema, sale audiovisive, caffè, ristoranti, gallerie e centri culturali con cento artisti fotografi, galeristi, cineasti, curatori, critici e collezionisti, giornalisti , principalmente della Francia, ma anche di differenti parti del mondo , pronti a carpire documentazione di un così importante evento fotografico , tra questi anche il Gruppo Sinestetico (Albertin , Sassu , Scordo) che ha vissuto direttamente i primi sette giorni di inaugurazioni accreditati per Literary.
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