The photographic festival Rencontres d’Arles this year celebrates its 50th edition. Opening last month and on view through September 22, it was founded by the late Lucien Clergue, Michel Tournier and Jean-Maurice Rouquette. The 2019 iteration of the show offers visitors half a century of photography, featuring both new works and a collection of archives and memories that demonstrate its central purpose—making photography more accessible.
Coinciding with the completion of a new building by Marc Barani for the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (ENSP), the showcase features works by Raphaël Dallaporta and Pierre Nouvel, archival works from the festival’s own collection (comprised of over 3,300 pieces conserved at the Musée Réattu), and a journey through several major themes, including “My Body is a Weapon, “On the Edge,” “Living,” “Rereading,” “Emergences,” “The Other Photography,” “Platforms of the Visible,” “Building the Image,” and “Inhabiting.”
L. Chifflot The Zone
Gentilly, France
ca. 1939.
Looking to the future while commemorating the first 50 years of Recontres, the program includes historical shows (like “Helen Levitt,” “Photo/Brut,” “Germaine Krull,” and “Variétes”) and other sequences, in addition to presentations like “Walls of Power,” which celebrates the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and “The Zone”—a series of images illustrating the huge shantytown surrounding Paris. Other presentations on view this year include Kering Group’s “Women In Motion project, “The Living, The Dead, and Those at Sea” by Evangelia Kranioti, Pixy Liao’s “Experimental Relationship,” works by Tom Wood, Mohamed Bourouissa, Jacques Rémy, Daphné Bengoa, and Leo Fabrizio, as well as photographs by a new generation of artists like Camille Fallet and Yann Pocreau, and many more.
This year’s edition of Rencontres d’Arles is presented by Director Sam Stourdzé, the Minister of Culture Franck Riester, and Mayor of Arles and Vice President of the festival Hervé Schiavetti, with support from names including Prix Pictet, Éditions Louis Vuitton, Fondation Jan Michalski pour L’Écriture et la Littérature, BNP Paribas, and Lët’z Arles (Luxembourg).
Harry Gruyaert France, Baie de Somme
Fort Mahon
1991
Courtesy of the artist.
