ARLES 2018 47€ TTC FRANCE ISBN 978-2-330-10457-3
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INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERS
MAIN PARTNERS
MEDIA PARTNERS
THE RENCONTRES D’ARLES ENJOYS THE SPECIAL SUPPORT OF: PRIX PICTET, FONDATION JAN MICHALSKI POUR L’ÉCRITURE ET LA LITTÉRATURE, YELLOWKORNER, THE SWISS CONFEDERATION, LËT’Z ARLES (LUXEMBOURG), BNP PARIBAS, FONDATION LOUIS ROEDERER, FONDATION D’ENTREPRISE HERMÈS, TECTONA, ACTES SUD, PRO HELVETIA FONDATION SUISSE POUR LA CULTURE, SAIF, ADAGP, MÉTROBUS, LUMA ARLES, COMMUNAUTÉ D’AGGLOMÉRATION ARLES CRAU CAMARGUE MONTAGNETTE, AGEFOS PME PACA.
AND THE ACTIVE COLLABORATION OF: MUSÉE NATIONAL PICASSO-PARIS, ASSOCIATION DU MÉJAN, MONOPRIX ARLES, MUSÉE DÉPARTEMENTAL ARLES ANTIQUE, ABBAYE DE MONTMAJOUR, DIRECTION INTERRÉGIONALE DES SERVICES PÉNITENTIAIRES PACA/CORSE, ÉCOLE NATIONALE SUPÉRIEURE DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE D’ARLES, MUSÉE RÉATTU, TËNK, VILLA NOAILLES, CARRÉ D’ART – MUSÉE D’ART CONTEMPORAIN DE NÎMES, CARRÉ D’ART – BIBLIOTHÈQUE DE NÎMES, MUCEM, COLLECTION LAMBERT AVIGNON, FRAC PACA, FRAC GRAND LARGE – HAUTS DE FRANCE, FONDATION MANUEL RIVERA ORTIZ, MUSEON ARLATEN, CONSEILS D’ARCHITECTURE, D’URBANISME ET DE L’ENVIRONNEMENT 30 ET 34, SERVICE DU PATRIMOINE DE LA VILLE D’ARLES, PARC NATUREL RÉGIONAL DE CAMARGUE, FONDATION VINCENT VAN GOGH, ASSOCIATION POUR UN MUSÉE DE LA RÉSISTANCE ET DE LA DÉPORTATION EN ARLES ET PAYS D’ARLES, INRAP, THÉÂTRE D’ARLES, INA, BOUCHES-DU-RHÔNE TOURISME.
SUPPORT FROM: ÉDITIONS LOUIS VUITTON, FNAC, RIVEDROIT AVOCATS, PINSENT MASONS LLP, FIDAL, JEAN‑FRANÇOIS DUBOS, HAHNEMÜHLE FINEART, MATMUT, LE POINT, MADAME FIGARO, POLKA, IDEAT MAGAZINE, MK2, L’OFFICIEL ART, FISHEYE, OFF THE WALL, AMA, RÉPONSES PHOTO, WOMBAT, PICTO FOUNDATION, CENTRAL DUPON IMAGES, PROCESSUS, CIRCAD, DEUXIÈME ŒIL, ATELIER SUNGHEE LEE & GAMBIER, ANITA SAXENA INTERPRÉTARIAT.
PROGRAM With approximately 30 exhibitions, the Rencontres d’Arles offers a general survey of contemporary photographic creation and practices. The relationships suggested within the program are at the core of the different sequences. They allow categories to be identified and, year after year, they encourage a thorough exploration of developments in photography.
P. 20
P. 64
P. 122
AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
RUN, COMRADE, THE OLD WORLD IS BEHIND YOU
THE WORLD AS IT IS
Because America’s image owes something to foreign eyes! From Robert Frank to Laura Henno, 60 years of American chronicles. P. 22
ROBERT FRANK SIDELINES P. 32
RAYMOND DEPARDON
DEPARDON USA, 1968‑1999 P. 42
PAUL GRAHAM
THE WHITENESS OF THE WHALE P. 50
TAYSIR BATNIJI
GAZA TO AMERICA, HOME AWAY FROM HOME P. 58
LAURA HENNO REDEMPTION
Revolts, utopia, shifts: 1968, the year that changed the world. P. 66
1968, WHAT A STORY!
BARRICADES, EXPRESSION, REPRESSION P. 76
THE TRAIN, RFK’S LAST JOURNEY
PAUL FUSCO, REIN JELLE TERPSTRA & PHILIPPE PARRENO P. 86
PARADISE!
FROM FOS-SUR-MER TO THE GRANDE MOTTE, BETWEEN DREAMS AND CONCRETE
A radical dive into the heart of a complex, ever-mutating geopolitics. P. 124
OLGA KRAVETS, MARIA MORINA & OKSANA YUSHKO GROZNY, NINE CITIES P. 130
A PILLAR OF SMOKE
A LOOK AT TURKEY’S CONTEMPORARY SCENE P. 136
YINGGUANG GUO
THE BLISS OF CONFORMITY
P. 140
P. 92
CHRISTOPH DRAEGER & HEIDRUN HOLZFEIND
[THE AUROVILLE PROJECT]
P. 96
AUGMENTED HUMANITY
From transhumanism to introspection, navigating between the extremes of a common belief in humanity, we advance towards tomorrow … P. 98
MATTHIEU GAFSOU H+ P. 104
PLATFORMS OF THE VISIBLE NEW APPROACHES TO DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY
Observatory of documentary photography, a changing practice. P. 142
GREGOR SAILER
THE POTEMKIN VILLAGE P. 148
MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER BROWN YO SOY FIDEL P. 152
CHRISTOPHE LOISEAU THE RIGHT TO THE IMAGE
CRISTINA DE MIDDEL & BRUNO MORAIS
MIDNIGHT AT THE CROSSROADS P. 110
JONAS BENDIKSEN THE LAST TESTAMENT P. 118
THE HOBBYIST
LOOKING FOR PASSION
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P. 156
P. 192
P. 258
STYLISTIC FIGURES
EMERGENCES
ARLES BOOKS
Patterns and leitmotivs: the photographer at work. P. 158
RENÉ BURRI
THE IMAGINARY PYRAMIDS P. 164
WILLIAM WEGMAN BEING HUMAN P. 170
A trailblazing festival that seeks tomorrow’s talents.
COSMOS-ARLES BOOKS
11 ARTISTS UNDER 45 PRESENTED BY 10 GALLERIES.
P. 262
NEW DISCOVERY AWARD
LEAF THROUGH BOOKS PUBLISHED WITHIN THE LAST YEAR
QUAD
P. 263
MONICA ALCAZAR-DUARTE
GALERIE C
CHRISTTO & ANDREW ANNE GOLAZ PHOTOINK
CHANDAN GOMES
P. 180
THE 2018 BOOK AWARDS
SINZO AANZA
P. 174
THE UNFINISHED — LEE McQUEEN
CURRENT PUBLISHING PRACTICES
GALERIE IMANE FARÈS
METRONOM
ANN RAY
P. 260
P. 194
BAPTISTE RABICHON EN VILLE
The photography book in all its forms.
UN-SPACED
LUMA RENCONTRES DUMMY BOOK AWARD 2018 THE BEST 2018 DUMMY BOOKS
P. 264
GUESTS
KEHRER GALERIE
ANTON ROLAND LAUB
The Rencontres d’Arles gives carte blanche to two favored institutions to explore, each in its own way, their relation to images.
From Godard to Picasso, from Pigalle to the Barrio Chino, when works echo off each other.
AG GALERIE
P. 266
P. 182
PAULIEN OLTHETEN
DIALOGUES
JANE EVELYN ATWOOD & JOAN COLOM
THOMAS HAUSER
ALI MOBASSER GALERIE LES FILLES DU CALVAIRE GALERIE CONFLUENCE
PUBLIC SPACE
WIKTORIA WOJCIECHOWSKA
P. 188
P. 236
COLLAGE(S)
WHITE NIGHT
GODARD & PICASSO
FENG LI P. 240
AURORE VALADE INTIMATE REVOLTS P. 244
LUCAS OLIVET
KOPIEC BONAWENTURA P. 248
OLYMPUS: A PHOTOGRAPHIC CONVERSATION
VALÉRIE JOUVE & VIVIEN AYROLES P. 252
VR ARLES FESTIVAL P. 254
JULIEN CREUZET
MAÏS CHAUD MARLBORO
LE PALAIS DE TOKYO
PIA RONDÉ & FABIEN SALEIL P. 270
OPÉRA NATIONAL DE PARIS 3e SCÈNE
P. 272
P. 310
P. 340
ASSOCIATED PROGRAM
GRAND ARLES EXPRESS
OPENING WEEK
P. 274
P. 312
Places and institutions in Arles that participate in the festival’s program.
MATTHIEU RICARD & SIMÓN VÉLEZ CONTEMPLATION P. 278
PRIX PICTET CELEBRATES ITS LAUREATES P. 282
ASSOCIATION DU MÉJAN
GÉRALDINE LAY ADEL ABDESSEMED PRUNE NOURRY COLLECTION ANTOINE DE GALBERT FRÉDÉRIC DELANGLE & AMBROISE TÉZENAS
The wind of photography blows through the Great South.
NÎMES, CARRÉ D’ART WOLFGANG TILLMANS WHAT IS DIFFERENT? P. 316
BARIŞ DOĞRUSÖZ, ASIER MENDIZABAL, THU-VAN TRAN, CLEMENS VON WEDEMEYER
P. 342
NIGHT P. 344
DAY
P. 346
EDUCATION & TRAINING
A DESIRE FOR ARCHEOLOGY, PERSPECTIVES ON THE FUTURE
PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOPS
P. 318
EDUCATIONAL DOMAIN
NÎMES, BIBLIOTHÈQUE CARRÉ D’ART
CLICKS AND CLASSES
CANDIDA HÖFER
P. 290
PORTRAITS OF SPACES
P. 352
LA LUMIÈRE SOMBRE
P. 322
ARLES OFF-SITE
TODD HIDO P. 292
LËT’Z ARLES
PASHA RAFIY & LAURIANNE BIXHAIN P. 296
AN UNUSUAL ATTENTION
THREE ENSP GRADUATES FROM THE CLASS OF 2018 P. 298
MUSÉE RÉATTU
VÉRONIQUE ELLENA ALFRED LATOUR P. 300
LUMA
GILBERT & GEORGE PIPILOTTI RIST ARTHUR JAFA AMAR KANWAR LILY GAVIN
AVIGNON, COLLECTION LAMBERT CHRISTIAN LUTZ
ANATOMIES OF POWER
ITINERANT EXHIBITIONS JIMEI x ARLES INTERNATIONAL PHOTO FESTIVAL
P. 326
MARSEILLE, FRAC
BRUNO SERRALONGUE
P. 356
FROM CALAIS P. 330
CREDITS
KOROPA
PARTNERS
P. 332
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
LAURA HENNO
MARSEILLE, MUCEM SAY CHEESE! A HISTORY OF FRENCH DINING AND PHOTOGRAPHY
BOARD OF DIRECTORS THE TEAM INDEX OF ARTISTS
P. 304
HOPE
A COLLABORATIVE PERSPECTIVE P. 308
THE NONANTE-NEUF
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SHINING FROM ARLES HUBERT VÉDRINE
PRESIDENT OF THE RENCONTRES D’ARLES
The 49th Rencontres d’Arles will be shining again this year. It will shine in Arles with nearly 30 venues, some for the first time. It will also shine in the South of France with a fuller Grand Arles Express program. In Nîmes, we will welcome a new venue: the Carré d’Art library, which will host a show devoted to Candida Höfer. Carré d’Art itself will offer two exhibitions, including an immersion in the world of Wolfgang Tillmans, specifically designed for the museum’s space. In Marseille, MUCEM will team up with the Rencontres d’Arles for the first time for an exhibition with the mouth-watering title Say Cheese! A History of French Dining and Photography. This year, FRAC PACA will support us again with two projects, one echoing the festival’s program (with a video by Laura Henno), the other the FRAC Grand Large‑Hauts‑de‑France collection (Bruno Serralongue). After The World As It Is, a successful exhibition at J1, collaboration with Marseille is stepping up. The MJ1 association had asked the Rencontres to extend the summer with eight free shows. Over 26,000 people visited this highlight of Marseille’s winter season.
Lastly, the Rencontres d’Arles continues to shine internationally with the third Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival in China and many exhibitions produced by the Rencontres that will travel to London, Antwerp and Barcelona.
A BIG THANKS TO ALL OUR PARTNERS! The Rencontres d’Arles wishes to thank the Ministry of Culture, the Provence‑Alpes Côte d’Azur Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs, the Provence‑Alpes‑ Côte d’Azur Regional Council, the Bouches‑du‑Rhône Departmental Council, the city of Arles, the Arles‑Crau‑Montagnette metropolitan area, the Ministry of Education, the Canopé network, the Centre for National Monuments, and all our public partners whose support is so important to us. We are delighted to take part in events at MP2018 – Quel Amour ! and in the Musée National Picasso Paris’ project “Picasso‑Méditerranée”. We would like to thank all our sponsors and private partners for their generosity and continued trust,
first of all Olympus, the Luma Foundation, BMW, SNCF Gares & Connexions, the Prix Pictet, the Fondation Jan Michalski pour l’écriture et la littérature, the Swiss Confederation, YellowKorner, and many others that space prevents us from listing here. A word of welcome to our newest partners: Éditions Louis Vuitton and Hanhemühle FineArt. We are also delighted to continue our collaboration with recent partners such as BNP Paribas, Lët’z Arles (Luxembourg), the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès and the Louis Roederer Foundation. Finally, we would like to thank our principal media partners who promote the Festival: France Inter, ARTE, Konbini, LCI, Le Point, Madame Figaro, IDEAT Magazine, Polka, Fisheye, OFF the wall and all the others.
On a wider scale, the Rencontres d’Arles will shine in France with the upcoming creation of the Institute for Photography, of which it is a founding member with the Hauts-de-France region. I salute the appointment of the energetic Marin Karmitz as the association’s president, a Rencontres d’Arles board member whose outstanding collection was celebrated at Maison Rouge in Paris this winter. 13
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BACK TO THE FUTURE SAM STOURDZÉ
DIRECTOR OF THE RENCONTRES D’ARLES
Departure for the 49th Rencontres d’Arles is imminent. This year, you are invited to cross space and time with a breathtaking, celestial journey across the ages. Photography is often the best-placed medium for registering all the shocks that remind us the world is changing, sometimes right before our eyes. An arts program is an excellent time machine—a constellation of exhibitions, intersecting, interacting, and occasionally colliding. With the artist’s eye as our aid, and the recent past as our measuring stick, we can discover the near future and shed some light on the big questions of society today. RUN, COMRADE, THE OLD WORLD IS BEHIND YOU
1968 goes hand in hand with the events of May. Yet more broadly, it was a year of great upheavals. Many moments would rock the world, shaking in their wake those who thought values were immutable. Meanwhile, from Martin Luther King to Robert F. Kennedy, the “disruptive” were assassinated (The Train) … Beyond revolt, 1968 was a time when anything seemed possible. There was a belief that wellbeing could be developed on a large scale, in dreams and concrete. In France, we would plan, develop, and urbanize. The same year, the Rhône delta would begin work on three icons of modern design. Launched with just a few months in between, Fos‑sur‑Mer became the emblem of industrial concentrations, and the Grande-Motte made the dream of the seaside resort attainable to all. The third project was the Regional Nature Park of the Camargue: the preservation, if not creation, of wild space par excellence. (Paradise!)
It is this global project of a materialist and consumerist society that the youth of ’68 would challenge, waving slogans and cobblestones. With commentary by historians Ludivine Bantigny and Patrick Boucheron, the exhibition 1968, What a Story! uses different points of view (unpublished items from police archives, Paris‑Match, and Gamma-Rapho-Keystone) to capture the spirit of revolt that took hold of Paris, and the world, at this time. AUGMENTED HUMANITY
50 years later, we are living in controversial times again. All the data we produce is systematically recorded, shared, and circulated. The emergence of digital man is both fascinating and troubling. The victory of artificial intelligence over human intelligence is proclaimed daily. We witness the emergence of an enhanced humanity each day, a cyber world in which digital power ensures a new welfare. Health and security are now managed on screens. We slowly enter the realm of the cyborg, with transhumanism pledging its unshakable faith in science and technology, sole guarantors of the improvement of the human condition! Today, in the face of the digital revolution and its promises of a post-human future, we see movements that wish to go back to the basics, like those of 1968. Modern forms of resistance entail a reevaluation of fundamentals. More than ever before, attention is paid to food quality and to local and sustainable development. We reinvent ourselves with a different set of values—ecology, spirituality, meditation. Navigating two extremes of belief in man, between transhumanism and collective introspection, we move forward.
Jonas Bendiksen follows seven characters from around the world who, reassured by their followers, consider themselves the new messiah. From Africa to America, Cristina de Middel and Bruno Morais look at transhumance and changes in Èsù, the spirit that controls life’s movement. The architect Simon Velez builds an immense bamboo temple to accommodate the photography of Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk close to the Dalaï Lama. Christoph Draeger and Heidrun Holzfeind go to Auroville, an Indian community founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa (known as “The Mother”), designed by the architect Roger Anger with the goal of “attaining human unity.” This utopian community still hosts around 2,500 people today. For some years, Matthieu Gafsou has devoted himself to inventorying every version of transhumanism. His work H+ focuses on dreams of a plausible future. Here, exoskeletons make the very notion of incapacity obsolete, and cryogenics unify the notions of eternal life and temporary death. Because it forces us to imagine ourselves in a world that is close to science fiction, between fantasy and reality, imagination and progress, fiction and the future, our age is an inspiration to photographers. Thanks to the efforts of artists we discover what does not yet exist … AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
We would like to commemorate another anniversary. Ten years before ’68, a young man devised a book that would shatter our notions of photography. In 1958, when photographer Robert Frank and editor Robert Delpire were 34 and 32, respectively, they published The Americans, a book of 84 prints. This book would mark generations of photographers, historians, and curators. For the first time, a perspective that broke with the complacency of the postwar humanist schools was offered. Robert Frank invented the photography road trip. He was quick, agile, and mobile, and made off‑centering a creative choice. With Frank, photography entered a new age, and the Beat Generation found its angle. There was a lot of criticism, of course. He was reproached for a derisory use of the word “Americans,” the title of his series of ordinary portraits and situations. Praising the ordinary and sacralizing non-events earned him scorn. Where is the America of dreams and consumerism, always growing and promising
a beautiful tomorrow? It’s right before our eyes, trapped in the paradox of consumerism and boredom and the changes that would bring about vigorous opposition to inequality and mounting injustice. Although missing from the actual photos, not far behind are the people who would brandish cobblestones demanding justice, diversity, and openness, with calls to dispense with the old ways. America has not changed all that much — in the past, the country was outraged to be represented by a foreigner (Robert Frank is Swiss); today, it continues to stigmatize otherness. While its startling leader advocates for withdrawal, giving speech after speech, the Rencontres d’Arles offers an off-center look, proof that the world’s leading power owes a part of its image to foreigners. Robert Frank (Switzerland), Raymond Depardon (France), Paul Graham (United Kingdom), Taysir Batniji (Palestine), and Laura Henno (France), born in 1924, 1942, 1964, 1966, and 1976. Representing each generation, with a foreigner’s eye, these artists take a look at America, wary of the photogenic. Each in their own way, they have captured the violence of disparities, documented the power of stories, taken road trips with no final destination, and thus unconsciously made their contribution to the image of the country. More than other places, America is nourished by the foreign. The Rencontres d’Arles is your festival. It is a place for sharing and discovering photography in all its diversity and depth of vision; an instrument for understanding, reflecting and building the society we live in. One thing is certain, photography also shapes the world we live in.
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THE CURATORS OF THE EXHIBITIONS
ILGIN DENIZ AKSELOĞLU
JOERG BADER
AGNÈS BARRUOL
Born 1988, Istanbul, Turkey. Lives and works in Istanbul.
Born 1955, Zurich, Switzerland. Lives and works in Geneva, Switzerland.
Born 1962, Montpellier, France. Lives and works in Marseille, France.
Ilgın Deniz Akseloğlu studied philosophy at the Galatasaray and Sorbonne universities (BA). She worked in various art and culture institutions and took part in several photography projects as a writer and editor. She has been in charge of the programs of Operation Room art space since 2014 and is currently the associate curator of Cappadox Contemporary Art Programme. She continues her studies in Cultural Management (MA).
Artist, critic, writer, publisher, professor, and curator Joerg Bader has headed the Centre de la Photographie, Geneva, since 2001. He views his work as a critique in the form of visual art, writing, radio, publishing, and curation. His work as a curator includes the exhibitions Open Frame I & II, at C.R.A.C., Sète (2011), and fALSEfAKES and Caméra(auto)contrôle (2013) at the Centre de la Photographie, Geneva (2016). He has written about Balthasar Burkhard, Philippe Durand, Michel François, Anish Kapoor, Gianni Motti, Orlan, Gerhard Richter, Jules Spinatsch, Bruno Serralongue, Elaine Sturtevant, and Jeff Wall, among others.
Trained as a historian, Head Curator Agnès Barruol currently leads the cultural heritage program for the Bouches-duRhône Departmental Council. She has developed restoration policies in the region, protected historical sites and works of art, and assisted museum programs, memorials, and other new ways of promoting cultural heritage. Paying particular attention to the relationship between history and artistic creation, she has directed many exhibitions of contemporary art at historical sites and assisted several photography commissions in the Bouches‑du‑Rhône region.
EXHIBITION: A PILLAR OF SMOKE, A LOOK AT TURKEY’S CONTEMPORARY SCENE — P. 130
EXHIBITION: GREGOR SAILER, THE POTEMKINE VILLAGE — P. 142
EXHIBITION: PARADISE! FROM FOS-SUR-MER TO THE GRANDE MOTTE, BETWEEN DREAMS AND CONCRETE — P. 86
DARIA DE BEAUVAIS
CLOTILDE BLANC-BURRI
CLÉMENT CHÉROUX
Born 1977, Paris, France. Lives and works in Paris, France.
Born 1956, Paris, France. Lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland and Paris, France.
Born 1970, Vélizy, France. Lives and works in San Francisco, United States.
Daria de Beauvais is a curator at the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), after previous professional experiences in Italy and the USA. Amongst her recent exhibitions: Carte Blanche to Camille Henrot – Days are Dogs (2017), Mika Rottenberg (2016), and Céleste Boursier-Mougenot – acquaalta (2015). She is also a freelance curator, sits on various committees and juries, and writes for a number of magazines and publications.
Clotilde Blanc Burri published postcards, posters, and calendars for Nouvelles Images from 1983 through 2012. Since the 2013 creation of the Fondation René Burri at Lausanne’s Musée de l’Élysée, she has worked on the archives and inventory of the Burri holdings. EXHIBITION: RENÉ BURRI, THE IMAGINARY PYRAMIDS — P. 158
EXHIBITIONS: JULIEN CREUZET, MAÏS CHAUD MARLBORO — P. 254; PIA RONDÉ & FABIEN SALEIL, TOPOPHILIE DES CENDRES — P. 266
BERNADETTE CAILLE LÉA BISMUTH Born 1983, Paris, France. Lives and works in Paris, France.
Having studied art and philosophy at the Sorbonne, Bismuth began writing for artpress in 2006. As a curator, she adapts literary and philosophical texts to suit exhibitions, as in her work with the Nouvelles Vagues at the Palais de Tokyo (2013), CAC La Traverse (2015), URDLA Focus Résonance Biennale in Lyon (2015), Les Tanneries, Image‑Imatge, and Drawing Lab (2017). In 2017, she was the curator of Samuel Gratacap’s exhibition at the Rencontres d’Arles, and Clément Cogitore at BAL. From 2016 to 2019, she will be working on a curatorial program for Labanque in Béthune, entitled La Traversée des Inquiétudes, a trilogy inspired by the thought of Georges Bataille. EXHIBITION: THOMAS HAUSER, THE WAKE OF DUST — P. 216
Lives and works in Paris.
Bernadette Caille is an art book and illustrated book publisher, a researcher, an archivist, a free-lance exhibition curator and an adjunct lecturer at the University of Paris X-Nanterre.
Clément Chéroux is senior curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). Chéroux served as photography curator and then chief curator of the Department of Photography at the Centre Pompidou in Paris from 2007 to 2016. Prior to that, he was a lecturer at University of Paris I and Paris 8, and University of Lausanne, and was executive editor of the magazine Études Photographiques. Chéroux has published more than 40 books and catalogs and curated or co-curated more than 20 exhibitions on modern and contemporary photography. Chéroux earned a PhD in art history from the University of Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne, and a degree from the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie, Arles. EXHIBITION: THE TRAIN, RFK’S LAST JOURNEY, PAUL FUSCO, REIN JELLE TERPSTRA & PHILIPPE PARRENO — P. 76
EXHIBITION: 1968, WHAT A STORY! BARRICADES, EXPRESSION, REPRESSION — P. 66
FRANÇOIS CHEVAL CLAUDI CARRERAS GUILLÉN Born 1973, Barcelona, Spain. Lives and works between Barcelona and South America.
Claudi Carreras Guillén is an independent curator, editor, and photography researcher. He was the director of the first Latin American Photographic Collectives in Sao Paulo and is also the director of E·CO (Encounter of Photo Collectives). He was the exhibition curator for the past four editions of the Paraty em Foco Festival (Rio de Janeiro, 2012‑2015); curator for the Latin America edition of Photoquai at the Musée du Quai Branly (Paris, 2013, 2015); curator and editor for LatinUs Photo Latino USA; and Director of FLUZ project (Quito, 2015-2016). EXHIBITION: CRISTINA DE MIDDEL & BRUNO MORAIS, MIDNIGHT AT THE CROSSROADS — P. 104
Born 1954, Belfort, France. Lives and works in Chalon-sur-Saône, France.
With a background in history and ethnology, François Cheval has been a museum curator since 1982. From 1996 to 2016, he headed the Musée Nicéphore Niépce in Chalon-sur-Saône. There he worked to free photography of presuppositions and present the originality of “the photographic” through a renovated museography and discourse. Following on from projects developed outside the museum world, today he continues, alone or with The Red Eye – Projets pour la Photographie, as art director and exhibition curator, questioning the certainties of the photographic medium and environment, creating moments of discovery, interrogation, and, perhaps, pleasure. EXHIBITION: BAPTISTE RABICHON, EN VILLE — P. 170
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DEVIKA DAULET-SINGH
FANNIE ESCOULEN
MARTIN GASSER
Born 1972, Belgrade, former Yugoslavia. Lives and works in New Delhi, India.
Born 1978, Valence, France. Lives and works in Marseille and Paris, France.
Born 1955, Weinfelden, Switzerland. Lives and works in Winterthur, Switzerland.
Devika Daulet-Singh is the director of PHOTOINK. Her engagement with the world of photography has been as an editor, curator, and publisher of photo books. Daulet-Singh’s curatorial projects include The Portrait: Contemporary Indian Photography (FotoFreo, Australia, 2012); Photographing the Street: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (Delhi Photo Festival, New Delhi, 2011), and The Self and the Other – Portraiture in Contemporary Indian Photography (Palau de la Virreina, Barcelona, 2009). She was the Associate Curator for the Indian presentations at the 2007 edition of the Rencontres d’Arles.
Fannie Escoulen graduated from the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles in 2000 before becoming a freelance exhibition curator specializing in contemporary photography and the assistant director of BAL in Paris from 2007 to 2014, curating the Antoine d’Agata, Stéphane Duroy, and Anne-Marie Filaire exhibitions. She was the artistic director of the Prix Levallois from 2015 to 2017 and is presently in charge of creating the Ooshot Award, a new prize dedicated to photography commissions. She regularly collaborates with publishers on photography books and works as a consultant for companies and patrons of photography.
EXHIBITION CHANDAN GOMES, PEOPLE YOU MAY KNOW — P. 212
EXHIBITIONS: VALÉRIE JOUVE & VIVIEN AYROLES, MARSEILLE, JÉRICHO, A PHOTOGRAPHIC CONVERSATION — P. 248; TODD HIDO, LA LUMIÈRE SOMBRE — P. 290
Martin Gasser first studied photography at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Rochester Institute of Technology (United States). In 1987-90, he studied history of photography and modern art at Princeton University. In 1996, he became the curator of collections at Fotomuseum Winterthur, and since 1998, he is the co-director and curator of Fotostitung Schweiz (Swiss Foundation of Photography), Winterthur, Switzerland. He has published numerous articles and curated exhibitions on 19th and 20th century photography, among others devoted to daguerreotypes, David Octavius Hill, Carl Durheim, Pictorialism, Marianne Breslauer, Robert Frank, and Balthasar Burkhard.
SIMINDOKHT DEHGHANI Born 1970, Esfahan, Iran. Lives and works in Tehran, Iran.
Simindokht Dehghani is a translator, art collector, and curator. In 2015, she founded Ag Galerie. She holds a BA in art history and criticism from the University of California San Diego. EXHIBITION: ALI MOBASSER, THE PIECES OF MY GRANDFATHER’S BROKEN HEART — P. 224
WILLIAM A. EWING Born 1944, Montreal, Canada. Lives and works in London, United Kingdom.
William Ewing was head of the Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne (Switzerland) from 1996 to 2010. Today, he is a curator for the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography in Minneapolis (United States) and the Fondation Carène (Switzerland). He has worked on shows at MoMA (New York), Centre Georges-Pompidou (Paris), Serpentine Gallery (London) and Folkwang Museum (Essen). His recent publications are on Edward Burtynsky and William Wegman. EXHIBITION: WILLIAM WEGMAN, BEING HUMAN — P. 164
EXHIBITION: ROBERT FRANK, SIDELINES — P. 22
LINDE B. LEHTINEN Born 1978, Cincinnati, United States. Lives and works in San Francisco, United States
Linde B. Lehtinen is assistant curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). Prior to that, Lehtinen worked for several museums in both education and curatorial positions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Research Institute, and Skirball Cultural Center. Her research and curatorial work has ranged from interwar mass advertising culture to conceptual photography. She has published several articles and presented lectures on the history of photography in America. She received her BA in art history from the University of Chicago and earned her MA and PhD in art history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. EXHIBITION: THE TRAIN, RFK’S LAST JOURNEY, PAUL FUSCO, REIN JELLE TERPSTRA & PHILIPPE PARRENO — P. 76
DANIEL LESMES
DOMINIQUE PAÏNI
RAMON PEZ
Born 1973, Madrid, Spain. Lives and works in Madrid, Spain.
Lives and works in Paris, France.
Born 1975, Udine, Italia. Lives and works between Barcelona, Spain, and Mexico City, Mexico.
Daniel Lesmes, who holds a PhD in art history, is a former resident of the Spanish Academy in Rome. He completed his education by studying law and philosophy at Madrid’s Complutense University, where he has taught since 2014. He has written several articles and essays on art, aesthetics, and politics, including Aburrimiento y capitalismo en la escena revolucionaria (Boredom and Capitalism on the Revolutionary Scene, Éditions Pre-Textos, 2018). He is the president and curator of Cruce, a landmark on Madrid’s independent art scene.
Dominique Païni has spent most of his professional life disseminating film culture and its relationship to the other arts. In 1991, he was appointed head of the Cinémathèque Française. Afterwards, he was director of the Centre Pompidou. At the same time, he curated international exhibitions in France and North America, such as Hitchcock et les arts (2001); Jean Cocteau, sur le fil du siècle (2003); and Voyage(s) en utopie de Jean‑Luc Godard (2006). He has also written authoritative works on the relationship between film and the other arts.
EXHIBITION: AURORE VALADE, INTIMATE REVOLTS — P. 240
EXHIBITION: GODARD-PICASSO-COLLAGE(S) — P. 188
Ramon Pez is a creative director and curator. His background combines visual arts and design. He is involved in projects where stories and narrative structures interact within different media platforms. His most recent projects include: Libyan Sugar (Michael Christopher Brown, Twin Palms Publisher, 2016), The New Colonists (Monica Alcazar-Duarte, Photographer’s Gallery, 2018), A History of Misogyny – On Abortion (Laia Abril, Rencontres d’Arles, 2016), Ponte City (Mikhael Subotzky, Patrick Waterhouse, Steidl, 2014), and the art direction of COLORS magazine. EXHIBITION: MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER BROWN, YO SOY FIDEL — P. 148
CHRISTOPHER MCCALL
YANN PERREAU
Lives and works in San Francisco, United States.
Born 1977, Paris, France. Lives and works between Paris, Istanbul, Turkey, and Los Angeles, United States.
Christopher McCall is the director of Pier 24 Photography in San Francisco, one of the largest exhibition spaces devoted to photography. In 2002, McCall received his MFA in photography from the California College of the Arts, studying under Jim Goldberg and Larry Sultan. After teaching for seven years, he joined Pier 24 Photography in 2009 as the inaugural director, assisting in the conceptualization of the organization’s mission and operating principles. Since opening the doors of Pier 24, McCall has overseen the presentation of numerous exhibitions and spearheaded the creation of the Larry Sultan Visiting Artist Program, a program in collaboration with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and California College of the Arts. EXHIBITION: PAUL GRAHAM, THE WHITENESS OF THE WHALE — P. 42
Yann Perreau is a writer and curator. He owns a gallery in Southern California (Here Is Elsewhere) and has organized exhibitions for museums and galleries around the world. He writes for, amongst others, artpress, Les Inrockuptibles, and Vanity Fair, and is an editor at large for Postapmag. In the last few years, he has worked mostly with artists from Turkey, exhibiting them in Paris, Ankara, Geneva, and Los Angeles. EXHIBITION: A PILLAR OF SMOKE, A LOOK AT TURKEY’S CONTEMPORARY SCENE — P. 130
ANNA PLANAS AND PIERRE HOURQUET Born 1980, Barcelona, Spain. Lives and works in Paris, France. Born 1974, Hagetmau, France. Lives and works in Paris, France.
Anna Planas and Pierre Hourquet have worked on projects for a variety of institutes and artists as independent curators and book designers. In 2013, they founded Temple, first as a project space dedicated to presenting a new generation of French and international artists. Today, as a studio, Temple is focused on creating exhibitions and designing books related to photography and mixed media. Recent projects include The Hobbyist at the Rencontres d’Arles and the Fotomuseum Winterthur (2017); Blank Paper, Histories of the Immediate Present at The Rencontres d’Arles (2017); Magnum Analog Recovery catalog for Le Bal (2017); and Provoke, published by Steidl (2016). EXHIBITION: THE HOBBYIST, LOOKING FOR PASSION — P. 118
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MICHEL POIVERT
ESTELLE ROUQUETTE
THOMAS SAUVIN
Born 1965, Toulon, France. Lives and works in Paris, France.
Born 1960, Montpellier, France. Lives and works in Arles, France.
Born 1983, Paris, France. Lives and works in Paris and Beijing, China.
Professor of art history at Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne, Michel Poivert is also a critic and exhibition curator. He is the author of La Photographie contemporaine (Flammarion, 2010), Brève histoire de la photographie (Hazan, 2015), and Les Peintres photographes (Mazenod, 2017). He organized the exhibitions La Région humaine (MAC de Lyon, 2006), L’Événement, les images comme acteurs de l’histoire (Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2007), Gilles Caron, le conflit intérieur (Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, 2013), Nadar, la Norme et le Caprice (Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, 2015), and Gilles Caron Paris 1968 (Hôtel de Ville de Paris, 2018).
Estelle Rouquette has a PhD in art history and archeology. As assistant director of the Camargue Regional Nature Park, she organizes cultural projects, heritage, architecture, landscape, energy, and environmental education and awareness. She is also the director of the Camargue Museum. She worked for the Bouches-du-Rhône Departmental Council, for the Museon Arlaten from 1991 to 2006, then for the Domaine Départemental du Château d’Avignon from 2006 to 2008. Her background, marked by exchanges and interdisciplinarity, brings together heritage, environment, and contemporary art.
Chinese photography expert Thomas Sauvin traveled the length and breadth of China for over 10 years assembling a vast collection for the English Archive of Modern Conflict project. Interested in vernacular photography, since 2009 he has collected discarded negatives from a recycling plant north of Beijing. His continuously changing Beijing Silvermine archive, which contains over a half‑million anonymous snapshots, has been featured in many exhibitions, collaborative projects, and publications.
EXHIBITION: LAURA HENNO, REDEMPTION — P. 58
EXHIBITION: PARADISE! FROM FOS-SUR-MER TO THE GRANDE MOTTE, BETWEEN DREAMS AND CONCRETE — P. 86
EXHIBITION: FENG LI, WHITE NIGHT — P. 236
PHILIPPE SÉCLIER Born 1958, Villeneuve-St-Georges, France. Lives and works in Paris, France.
MARTA PONSA Born in Barcelona, Spain. Lives and works in Paris, France.
Art historian Marta Ponsa is in charge of artistic projects and cultural activities for Jeu de Paume, where she organizes cinema programs, conferences, and performances. As a curator, she has organized projects on European photography from 1920‑1950; video; and the visual and digital arts. She is regularly involved with institutions focused on photography and contemporary art, such as Photo España, Madrid, FotoFest, Houston, La Caixa Foundation, Barcelona, Oberhausen Film Festival, CPH:DOX, Copenhagen, as well as photography and design schools such as Eina, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, and the École Supérieure de Photographie de Vevey, Switzerland. EXHIBITION: PAULIEN OLTHETEN, LA DÉFENSE, THE VENTURING GAZE — P. 228
MICHAEL SARGEANT Born 1989, Ashford, United Kingdom. Lives and works in London, United Kingdom.
Michael Sargeant is a curator and creative producer. He currently holds the position of Online Education Manager at Magnum Photos. He is an Associate Curator for the FORMAT International Photography Festival, UK’s leading biennale in contemporary photography and related media, and he regularly curates and produces projects independently. He works with emerging artists, developing their practice through residency programs, small commissions, and exhibitions. EXHIBITION: MONICA ALCAZAR-DUARTE, ASCENSION — P. 200
A former journalist, for several years Philippe Séclier has been working with Raymond Depardon. He has published, to name a few, the photographic works Hôtel Puerto (2001) and La longue route de sable (2005); and directed two documentary films, one on Marc Riboud, Instants d’année (2004), and another on Robert Frank’s book Les Américains (2009). With the editor Xavier Barral, he co-curated the exhibition Autophoto at the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain (Paris) in 2017. EXHIBITION: RAYMOND DEPARDON, DEPARDON USA, 1968-1999 — P. 32
THOMAS SEELIG
ÉRIC SOYER
SONIA VOSS
Born 1964, Cologne, Germany. Lives and works in Winterthur, Switzerland.
Born Paris, France. Lives and works in Paris.
Born 1978, Paris, France. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Thomas Seelig studied Visual Communication at the Fachhochschule Bielefeld, followed by a curatorial study program at the Jan van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht/ NL. He joined the Fotomuseum Winterthur team in 2003 as curator/collection curator and was co-director of the Fotomuseum from 2013 to 2017. Thematic exhibitions he curated include The Ecstasy of Things (2004), Research and Invention (2007), Karaoke (2009), and Concrete – Architecture and Photography (2013), as well as The Hobbyist (2017). In addition to solo exhibitions on Sergey Bratkov, James Welling, Yann Mingard, Onorato&Krebs, and Jungjin Lee, he co-curated the retrospectives of Mark Morrisroe and Balthasar Burkhard.
Éric Soyer works in stage design and lighting. Trained at the École Boulle in the department of visual expression in interior design, he has worked on dramaturgy with many artists, directors, choreographers, and composers in Europe. His collaboration with writer and director Joël Pommerat, begun in 1997, continues today, with a repertoire of twenty shows with his company.
Sonia Voss is an exhibition curator. She recently presented Sophie Calle, Serena Carone. Beau doublé, Monsieur le marquis ! at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris (2017‑2018); Sharunas Bartas. Few of Them at the Passage de Retz, Paris and at the Lithuanian Photographers’ Association, Vilnius (2016‑2017); and George Shiras. In the Heart of the Dark Night at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (2015‑2016). She also accompanied the project Mobile Churches by Anton Roland Laub. Other recent projects: Josef Koudelka, Invasion/Exiles/Wall (C/O Berlin, with Xavier Barral); Thibaut Brunet, Isabelle Le Minh. Déjà vu (Kehrer Galerie, Berlin); and book publishing at Xavier Barral, Filigranes, and Kehrer Verlag.
EXHIBITION: THE HOBBYIST, LOOKING FOR PASSION — P. 118
ANNA SHPAKOVA Born 1974, Vitebsk, Belarus. Lives and works in Moscow, Russia.
Anna Shpakova is an independent photo editor and cultural producer. She has worked as a director of photography for several leading magazines in Russia, and as an exhibition curator both in Russia and abroad. An established expert on Soviet photography, Anna has been involved in the visual study of emergent photography in post-Soviet countries. EXHIBITION: GROZNY: NINE CITIES — P. 124
EXHIBITION: CHRISTOPHE LOISEAU, RIGHT TO THE IMAGE — P. 152
SAM STOURDZÉ Born 1973, Paris, France. Lives and works in Arles and Paris, France.
Once a boarder at the Villa Medici, Sam Stourdzé became in 2014 director of the Rencontres d’Arles. Previously he was director of the Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne. A specialist in images, he researches the contexts of their production, distribution, and reception. EXHIBITIONS: TAYSIR BATNIJI, GAZA TO AMERICA, HOME AWAY FROM HOME — P. 50; RENÉ BURRI, THE IMAGINARY PYRAMIDS — P. 158; ANN RAY, THE UNFINISHED – LEE McQUEEN — P. 174; JANE EVELYN ATWOOD & JOAN COLOM, PUBLIC SPACE — P. 182
EXHIBITION: ANTON ROLAND LAUB, MOBILE CHURCHES — P. 220
DUNCAN WOOLDRIDGE Born 1981, Hitchin, United Kingdom. Lives and works in London, United Kingdom.
Duncan Wooldridge is an artist and writer. His writing explores experimental practices within photography and fine art. He writes for Artforum, Art Monthly, Elephant, and 1000 Words Magazine. In 2011, he curated the exhibition Anti-Photography for Focal Point Gallery, Southend, UK, and in 2015, he curated an exhibition and edited a book on the work of British photo-conceptual artist John Hilliard, entitled Not Black and White. He is the Course Director for Photography at Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts, London. EXHIBITION: CHRISTTO & ANDREW, ENCRYPTED PURGATORY — P. 204
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AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Because America’s image owes something to foreign eyes! From Robert Frank to Laura Henno, 60 years of American chronicles.
ROBERT FRANK
TAYSIR BATNIJI
60 years after Les Américains, a selection of iconic photos, and some nearly unknown shots from the most American of Swiss photographers.
From Gaza to the USA, Taysir Batniji and his family express being at home in exile.
SIDELINES
RAYMOND DEPARDON DEPARDON USA, 1968-1999
Historical events and journeys across the American West: Depardon gives us an oeuvre of 76 American photos, many unpublished.
GAZA TO AMERICA, HOME AWAY FROM HOME
LAURA HENNO REDEMPTION
Fully immersed in the Californian desert, Henno depicts the iconic camp of outsiders at Slab City.
PAUL GRAHAM
THE WHITENESS OF THE WHALE Roaming across America, Paul Graham chronicles its socio‑economic divisions, the accidents and the frantic energy of its cities.
Robert Frank, Bus-Stop, Detroit, 1955. Collection Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur. Gift of the artist. —
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ROBERT FRANK SIDELINES
One of the world’s most significant and influential photographers, Robert Frank has continually questioned and re-invented the photographic image and explored the narrative potential of sequences of photographs. Sixty years ago, in 1958, Robert Delpire in Paris published the first edition of his seminal book Les Américains. However, this perhaps most influential book in the history of photography was no spontaneous stroke of genius. Even though it was almost by accident that Frank had become a photographer, the book was the result of thorough training with out‑ standing professionals, a lot of hard work, great perseverance and intuition. The exhibition Sidelines retraces in its first part the evolution of the artist’s expres‑ sive style and his uncompromising search for a subjective truth before 1958. It starts with photographs taken in the tradition of such well-known Swiss photographers as Gotthard Schuh and Jakob Tuggener—whom Frank admired all his life—and continues with a reportage on the open air cantonal assembly in rural Switzerland that reveals Frank’s early interest in political manifestations and his particular view of events from the outside looking in.
Exhibition curator: Martin Gasser. Exhibition produced by Fotostiftung Schweiz in partnership with the Rencontres d’Arles. With support from the Swiss Confederation, Olympus and ARTE. Publication: Les Américains (new edition), Delpire, 2018. The prints, most of them originals, are all from the Fotostiftung Schweiz and Fotomuseum Winterthur collections. Along with the exhibition, Laura Israel’s documentary Don’t Blink - Robert Frank (Robert Frank, l’Amérique dans le viseur), produced by Assemblage Films in association with ARTE France, is being shown at the Espace Van Gogh. With support from the Swiss Confederation, Olympus and ARTE. Exhibition venue: Espace Van Gogh.
Followed by a wide selection of lyrical pictures taken throughout Europe after his first stay in New York that Frank collected in a book maquette entitled Black White and Things (1952), it ends with a group of images taken with a small-format Leica on a trip to South America that clearly ROBERT FRANK show he was on his way to totally liberating himself from all Born 1924, Zurich, Switzerland. photographic conventions. Lives and works in New York, United States. In its second part, the exhibition focuses on hitherto almost unknown pictures taken in the first half of the 1950s for Les Américains, while Frank was traveling in the US on a Guggenheim Fellowship. Images that remained unpub‑ lished for editorial reasons and are now put into context with a select group of the famous classics from the book that shocked the world when it was republished in New York as The Americans, in 1959. Martin Gasser
Robert Frank began his career during the war years in Switzerland. After moving to New York in 1947, he briefly worked for Harper’s Bazaar but spent much of the following years travelling in Europe and South America. After returning to the United States in 1953, he embarked on an epic road trip that resulted in the groundbreaking photo-book Les Américains (1958). In 1959, Frank started a second career as an independent filmmaker, directing highly personal films that often mixed fiction and reality. In the early 1970s, he began making complex multiple prints and photo-montages with handwritten comments that became increasingly autobiographical. These works definitively established Robert Frank as one of the most innovative visual artists of the 20th century. Portrait of Robert Frank: Gotthard Schuh, 1957. Courtesy of Fotostiftung Schweiz.
Portrait of Martin Gasser: Gaëtan Bally/Keystone.
Tree and Chair, Paris, 1949. Collection Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur. Property of the Swiss Confederation, Federal Office of Culture, Berne.
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London, 1951. From the archive of Arnold Kßbler Collection Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur. Paris, 1949. Collection Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur. Property of the Swiss Confederation, Federal Office of Culture, Berne.
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28 New York City, 1951-55. New York City, 1948. Collection Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur. Gift of the artist.
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Charity Ball, New York, 1955. Collection Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur. Property of the Swiss Confederation, Federal Office of Culture, Berne. Gallup, New Mexico, 1955. Collection Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur. Property of the Swiss Confederation, Federal Office of Culture, Berne.
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32 Valencia, 1952. Collection Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur. Property of the Swiss Confederation, Federal Office of Culture, Berne.
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RAYMOND DEPARDON
Exhibition curator: Philippe Séclier and Sam Stourdzé. Publication: Depardon USA, Éditions Xavier Barral, 2018. Prints by Patrick Toussaint, Les Crozets. Framing by Circad, Paris.
DEPARDON USA, 1968 –1999
Exhibition venue: Espace Van Gogh.
Born in 1942, Raymond Depardon belongs to a generation who saw the United States come to Europe’s rescue and, after World War II, advance a new cultural model. In Chicago, Illinois, in 1968, he produced his first story overseas. He co vered the Democratic National Convention and an anti-Vietnam War demonstra‑ tion. A few weeks later, he was the only French photographer to follow Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon’s electoral campaign, before his election as 37th president of the United States. In the 1970s and 1980s, with the rise of television, photojournalism experienced an unprecedented crisis, which Depardon, who founded the Gamma agency in 1966 and joined Magnum Photos in 1978, understood better than anyone. For him, the United States was a means to break away. In the winter of 1980-81, he headed to New York to discover the creative freedom of a new generation of American pho‑ tographers, in stark contrast to those of old Europe, trapped in some romantic or poetic humanism. He thus turned away RAYMOND DEPARDON from the pressures and imperatives of the press. Born 1942, Villefranche-sur-Saône, France. In the summer of 1981, from July 6 to August 12, he sent one photo and caption per day from New York to the news‑ paper Libération. He learned how to look without running after a story; he went back to the life of a regular person, who gets bored, admits his mistakes and frustrations, and speaks of himself in the first person. The Correspondance new-yorkaise, with its unlikely shots and offbeat text, would mark a turning point in his photography. In 1982, he toured the western United States, from New Mexico to Portrait of Philippe Séclier: LP/Olivier Corsan. California, passing Portrait of Sam Stourdzé: Stéphane Lavoué. through Colorado and Nevada. For the second time, it was in the United States that he found his line of flight in an even more distanced, unre‑ solved image.
Lives and works in Clamart, France.
Raymond Depardon has directed 21 feature-length films and published over 60 books. The youngest son in a family of farmers, he began taking photos of his parents’ farm at the age of 12. In 1958, he moved to Paris and worked as a reporter for the Dalmas agency, before co-founding Gamma in 1966. He has been a member of the Magnum agency since 1978. In 1998, he began a long project in film and photography on rural France. He earned the Luis Delluc Prize in 2008 with La vie moderne. In 2011, his four-year project on the road, La France de Raymond Depardon, was exhibited at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. In 2013, the exhibition Un moment si doux was shown at the Grand Palais in Paris, and again in 2014 at the Mucem, Marseille. His final film, 12 jours, was released at the end of 2017. Portrait of Raymond Depardon: Raymond Depardon/Magnum Photos.
He waited until 1999 to confront the United States again and begin a new line of questioning. A word had been on his mind for some time: errance. Violating all the rules of landscape photography, he chose a vertical for‑ mat. In Montana and South Dakota, he created the illusion of a frame in order to break it. He found detachment and the right distance, a unified gaze and position. The America of wide-open spaces, like infinitely geometrical cities, is the ideal place for deliverance. For the first time, the exhibition Depardon USA, 1968-1999 brings together 76 prints, many never seen before. Philippe Séclier
White Sands, New Mexico, 1982. Courtesy of Raymond Depardon/ Magnum Photos [all photographs].
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Universal Studio, Los Angeles, California, 1982.
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The Strip, Las Vegas, Nevada, 1982.
Manhattan, New York, 1981.
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Manhattan, New York, 1981.
Manhattan, New York, 1981.
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Denver, Colorado, 1982.
Downtown, Los Angeles, California, 1982.
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Manhattan, New York, 1981.
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PAUL GRAHAM
THE WHITENESS OF THE WHALE
Exhibition curator: Christopher McCall. Exhibition produced by Pier 24 Photography. Publication: The Whiteness of the Whale, Mack, 2015. Exhibition venue: Église des Frères-Prêcheurs.
The Whiteness of the Whale brings together three bodies of work produced in the United States between 1998 and 2011: American Night (1998-2002), a shimmer of possibility (2004-06), and The Present (2009-11). The Whiteness of the Whale fea‑ tures nearly forty works, ranging from single large-scale photographs to sequences of over twenty images. Graham’s three bodies of work from this period operate as an informal trilogy, linked not only by common subject matter, but also by underly‑ ing issues such as racial and social inequality, the texture of everyday life, and the nature of sight, perception, and photography itself. Immersing himself in the landscape and people of the United States has prompted Graham to examine more closely how the acuities and fallibilities of vision play into our perceptions of this country’s socioeconomic conditions. As his first body of work produced in the United States, American Night chronicles Graham’s initial impressions of this country and its socioeconomic divisions. Through the combina‑ tion of nearly invisible, overexposed images and full-color photographs, the work presents contrasting views that suggest contemporary America’s unspoken but omnipresent class divide. The series a shimmer of possibility is the product of journeying and roaming across everyday America. Rather than striving for a single, decisive image, Graham embraces the stuttering process of seeing and recognizing. Unfolding as an American epic of the small and incidental, Graham’s sequences of photographs span gaps of time and place, their interweaving of narrative threads, their digres‑ sions and shifts of scene creating imaginative spaces and a sense of the country at large, while mirroring its social divisions and discrepancies PAUL GRAHAM alongside the unpredictable fluctuations of life. The Present recalls the tradition of New York street photogra‑ phy, encapsulating the frenetic energy of Manhattan and the constant shifts in attention between people and places on the city’s unruly stage. Through groupings of two or three photo‑ graphs, Graham mimics the fluidity of urban consciousness by adjusting his camera’s focus across brief fractions of time. In The Present, trag‑ edy, comedy, dignity and sadness are all woven into the cloth of life in the unavoida‑ ble condition of the city.
Born 1956, United Kingdom. Lives and works in New York, Unites States.
In 1981, Graham completed his first acclaimed work, photographing life along England’s primary arterial road in a series of color photographs entitled A1: The Great North Road. His use of color film in the late 1970s and early 1980s, at a time when British photography was dominated by traditional black-and-white social documentary, had a revolutionizing effect on the genre. Graham has been the subject of more than 80 solo exhibitions worldwide. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 2009 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize and the 2012 Hasselblad Foundation International Award, considered to be photography’s highest honor. Portrait of Paul Graham: Estefania Meana.
Portrait of Christopher McCall: courtesy of the curator.
8th Avenue & 42nd Street, 17th August 2010, 11.23.03 am, from the The Present series, 2010. Courtesy of the Pace/ MacGill Gallery, New York; Carlier | Gebauer, Berlin; Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London [all photographs].
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46 New Orleans, from the a shimmer of possibility series, 2003-2006.
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48 Woman Sitting on Sidewalk, New York, from the American Night series, 2002 (#38). Man walking with blue bags, Augusta, from the American Night series, 2002 (#60).
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New Orleans, from the a shimmer of possibility series, 2003-2006.
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TAYSIR BATNIJI
Exhibition curator: Sam Stourdzé. Publication: Home Away From Home, Aperture, 2018. Prints and Framing by Après Midi Lab, Paris.
GAZA TO AMERICA, HOME AWAY FROM HOME
Home Away From Home was created as part of the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès’ Immersion, a French American Photography Commission program in alliance with Aperture Foundation.
In the work of Taysir Batniji — a Palestinian artist born in Gaza shortly before the 1967 war and Israeli occupation — impermanence and wandering, chosen or forced, experienced alone or collectively, are a prerequisite for freedom. To the comfort and stability of home (sweet home), Batniji, developing an oeuvre in perpetual motion, opposes the mobile home.
Exhibition venue: Chapelle Saint-Martin du Méjan.
The central project of his Arles exhibition, Home Away From Home, was produced in 2017 as part of Immersion, a French American Photography Commission, a pro‑ gram initiated by the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès together with the Aperture Foundation. In it, he retraces the journey of Palestinian cousins who emigrated to the United States, starting in the 1960s, a time of economic immigration. With sev‑ eral series of photographs, 7 videos, and 22 drawings, Batniji tries to capture the temporal and spatial discontinuity, the points of both rupture and fusion between a given identity, stripped away even as it is embraced, and a reconstituted identity. This American project is shown in parallel with a selected retrospective of works produced between 1999 and 2012, which, for the most part, question the medium as much as the image itself, the information it contains, and its meaning. The artist creates a rift between hyper-present forms of representation well known to viewers, and the serious subject matter of war reporting. Thus, an alternative, distanced, and personal reading of the news is offered (Watchtowers, 2008, and GH0809, 2010). Batniji tends to blur the distinction between the visible and the invisible, appearance and disappearance, as in his del‑ icate and vivid tribute: To my Brother (2012), a series of 60 hand carvings, based on photographs taken from the wed‑ ding album of his brother, killed by the Israeli army in 1987. The series Fathers (2006) is a different type of memorial. In the form of shots mises en abyme, taken in shops and work‑ places in Gaza, its subjects are genealogy, loss, and trans‑ mission. Once again, boundaries are porous between public and private spheres, personal and shared history, inside and outside. Finally, Gaza diary #03 (1999-2006), is a series of “impression‑ ist” photos taken during visits to Gaza, constituting a personal record. Batniji comments, “the more time passes, the more the prospect of a return grows distant, the more the photos are of tremendous importance to me. They are my memory.”
TAYSIR BATNIJI Born 1966, Gaza, Palestine. Lives and works in Paris, France.
Taysir Batniji studied art at An-Najah National University in Nablus before joining ENSA in Bourges in 1995. He lives and works in France and Palestine, a geographical and cultural in-between where photography and video have been the crux of his art since 2000. Drawing inspiration from his life, the news and history, he offers a poetic, distanced, sometimes grating look at reality. Since his first solo show in Paris in 2002, his work has been widely exhibited in Europe and around the world (Venice Biennial; Jeu de Paume, Paris; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; Kunsthalle, Vienna; Witte de With, Rotterdam; V&A Museum, London; etc.). Portrait of Taysir Batniji: Sophie Jaulmes.
Sophie Jaulmes
The Fathers series, 2006. Courtesy of the artist and the Sfeir-Semler gallery Beirut/Hamburg [all photographs].
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54 GH0809 #2 (Gaza Houses 2008-2009). Ruined houses, photographed in Gaza shortly after the Israeli “Cast Lead” operation, late 2008-early 2009, in the style of a real estate agency presentation.
Israelian watchtowers in West Bank, the Watchtowers series, 2008.
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56 Ahmed Batniji, West Palm Beach (Florida), from the Adam series, 2017. Yasmine Batniji, Newport Coast (California), from the Adam series, 2017.
Dr. Sobhi Batniji, Laguna Niguel (California), from the My American Cousins series, 2017.
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Dr. Kamal Batniji, Newport Coast (California), from the My American Cousins series, 2017.
Dr. Akram Batniji’s sons, Brea (California), from the My American Cousins series, 2017.
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LAURA HENNO REDEMPTION
Staying true to her exploration of a fallen humanity about which she tells a great tale, Laura Henno, whose previous work treated the subject of migrants from the Comoro Islands (her film Koropa will be presented in Marseille at the FRAC PACA for the Grand Arles Express), immerses herself in the Californian desert, in the lost Slab City. An emblem of America reduced to an infamous camp of outsiders, here the pioneer life is a dream turned nightmare. She settled into a caravan with her camera for two months in 2017 to meet, observe, and exchange with people, aiming to break the clichés and discover the characters. Some still cling to a beyond, for want of a future.
Exhibition curator: Michel Poivert. Exhibition coproduced by the Rencontres d’Arles, the Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire (Paris) and the Galerie Le Bleu du ciel (Lyon), in partnership with FRAC Provence-Alpes Côte d’Azur. Prints by Cadre en Seine Choi, Paris. Mounting by Atelier Deuxième Œil, Paris. Framing by Circad, Paris. The project benefited from the 2016 Hors les murs program of the Institut français. With support from Spectre Productions. Exhibition venue: Commanderie Sainte-Luce.
An old pastor and a young evangelist, key figures of this destitute community, embody the idea of a possible redemption. A warm light is cast on Slab City, revealing scarred and gentle beings: a family that stays together, maintaining hope, a mother and daughter singing hymns in a makeshift chapel under the vast Californian sky. The youth gather together on one of the slabs (the concrete left there by the U.S. Army) in the morning, and the long school bus driving them off to school represents a possible way out. In this world where redemption lies in seemingly paltry messages of love, Henno enters into dialogue with the full history of American photography, paying tribute to the photographers who, starting with Dorothea Lange up to William Eggleston, created our visual imaginary of the Global South. Henno, who earned the 2007 Discovery Award at the Rencontres d’Arles, is back 10 years later with a work all the more focused in its formal and ethical ambitions.
LAURA HENNO Born 1976, Croix, France. Lives and works in Paris, France.
Winner of the Rencontres d’Arles’ 2007 Discovery Award, Laura Henno carries out a combined exploration of film and photography. Her work has been exhibited at the Sharjah Biennal, the CPIF, and the Fotomuseum, Helsinki, to name a few. Her film Koropa has won awards at numerous international festivals. Portrait of Laura Henno: Anoushkashoot. Portrait of Michel Poivert: Laura Henno.
Revon and Michael, Slab City (USA), 2017. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire [all photographs].
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62 Michael, Slab City (USA), 2017. Pastor Dave Preaching, Slab City (USA), 2017.
Mariane and Jack-Jack, Slab City (USA), 2017. Revon and HeShe, Slab City (USA), 2017.
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64 The Marine’s Trailer, Slab City (USA), 2017.
Benjamin, Slab City (USA), 2017.
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