The first meeting was in 1970 when Lucien Clergue, photographer, Michel Tournier, writer and Jean-Maurice Rouquette, historian, decided to create a festival of photography that would make a Roman town in Provence the meeting point in Europe.
Les Rencontres de la photographie celebrates 50 editions in 2019, with 26 different artistic directions and over 1234 exhibitions. Three months, from July 1st to September 22nd, when the city wakes up and lives, opening its doors to places otherwise impossible to visit.
We start from l’église des Trinitaires, a church built in 1630 on the remains of a convent built by the Order of the Holy Trinity in 1198.
Perhaps to celebrate the history of this Gothic church, the curators have decided to name the exhibition celebrating Arles’s 50th anniversary “What a story“, with posters of all the editions and a selection of photos that have made the festival famous.
Philippe Chancel presents an exhibition that is the result of unprecedented research work: DATAZONE. For over fifteen years he has been exploring sensitive areas of our planet, from Japan after Fukushima to North Korea via the United States, China, Africa and Europe, to document the decline we are experiencing. Not only environmental but above all human.
Helen Levitt, with her sensitivity typical of the early 1900s, makes us discover a different and now forgotten New York, where children still play on the streets. Also on show are the negatives. In the same location, the Van Gogh space, on the upper floor, is an exhibition dedicated to women and the female body: Susan Meiselas and Eve Arnold together with Abigail Heyman are the protagonists of Unretouched Women.
Film Documents LLC/Courtesy Thomas Zander Gallery, Cologne.
Permanent loan of the Austrian Ludwig Foundation for Art and Science Film Documents LLC/Courtesy Thomas Zander Gallery, Cologne.
Don’t miss the exhibition Home sweet home at the Maison des Peintres: a tribute to how the concept of home in England has changed from the 1970s to the present day.
The Luma will host the Prix Dior de la Photographie pour Jeunes Talents with a splendid series by Mexican photographer Daniela Costantini on colours, beauty and femininity.
But Arles is not only the official festival, at the same time movements have developed such as those that brought to light Voies OFF, a parallel and contemporary festival in Arles.
The trip of Romain Staros Staropoli to the discovery of Detroit is particularly noteworthy.
The exhibition Open Walls, Home and Away, organized by the British Journal of Photography, opens the doors to the beautiful setting of the Galerie Huit.
