Place de la Republique,
Arles
'Arles in Black' is the theme for the 2013 Arles'
Rencontres. It should perhaps be 'Arles
in Black & White', and even that might not be strictly accurate, since
there is plenty of colour around, but that's about the extent of the
significant criticism I would make of what is a marvellous and extensive
celebration of photographic art. Located
partly in a variety of sites around the delightful and historic city itself -
all within ten minutes walk of each other, even in mid-30 degree heat - and
partly in the Parc des Ateliers - a collection of disused and partly derelict
factories, within five minutes walk of the city - the festival must offer the
best concentration of photographic exhibitions anywhere in the world. And these are not small exhibitions. That is one aspect that surprised and pleased
me most. Exhibition Space 12 at the
Parc des Ateliers, for example, has sizeable shows of John Davies, John Stezaker,
Antoine Gonin, Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt, as well as a collection of prints of
Hollywood personalities. It wouldn't be
difficult to spend two or three hours at this location alone.
Parc
des Ateliers, Arles
Therein lies one of the
challenges! With over fifty exhibitions
in total, it is impossible to attend all of them within any reasonable amount
of time. And we were there on holiday,
so there was no likelihood of spending an entire week at photographic exhibitions. So, I had already consulted the official
website - Les Rencontres d'Arles - and read some reviews, including Sean O'Hagan in the Observer, of whom more later. I had decided that I definitely wanted to see
Davis and Stezaker, plus Hiroshi Sugimoto, Wolfgang Tillmans, Christina De
Middel, Jacques Henri Lartigue and Gilbert Garcin; and also, following
O'Hagan's powerful recommendation, Alfredo Jaar. We managed to take in all of those, plus a
reasonably serious look at four or five others and a fairly casual 'skim' of
another four or five. I don't think I
could have coped with many more than that - so planning and selectivity were
crucial.
Recording reactions to all of that
is another challenge! I kept a notebook
of initial thoughts, which largely informs what follows, together with
subsequent reflection, a little bit of further research, and the chance, during
the week in Arles, to have some discussion with one fellow student - John
U. I'm going to start, in this first
post, with three exhibitions that produced strong, but quite different
responses in me.
Wolfgang Tillmans - Neue Welt
I mentioned 'big' exhibitions; this
one is really 'big' - large spaces, a lot of images, and some very big prints
(some so large that they were actually made up of two prints joined together,
which seems a pity, given the obvious expense behind the whole show). It is also in colour - high colour, intense
and saturated - and it is 'digital' - shot on digital cameras and, at times,
printed to a level of intense detail that seems well beyond 'reality'. Tillmans is asking himself "... whether
the world can be seen 'anew' in an era characterised by a deluge of media
images ..." says the accompanying text (from the Rencontres website).
I noted afterwards that this is an exhibition likely to produce mixed
reactions. Certainly, it feels to be as
much or more about process and photography as it is about subject matter or the
world - a 'New World' of photography rather than a genuinely 'New World'. The subjects of the images, be they a toucan,
car headlight, Ethiopian market or digital monitor screen, (and that short list
gives a flavour of the eclectic range on offer) seem almost irrelevant to the
splendour of their representation. In
that respect - and I think this is why I liked it and enjoyed it - it is a
totally 'Second Decade of the 21st Century' exhibition, totally 'now'. Tillmans pushes the digital capability and
explores how the world can be represented, is being presented, in the digital
age; pushing it past what the 'normal' human eye might see, into something
'ultra-real'. The outcome isn't
necessarily pleasing from an aesthetic viewpoint, and it seems to overwhelm any
documentary context for the subject matter, which is why it may not appeal to
everyone. It could almost come across as
a 'hyper' version of the camera club print competition - but I sense that this
is the point. It is asking questions -
as the above quote suggests - and should certainly provoke discussion. Is the "deluge of images" in this neue welt, splendid and overwhelming as
it might be, telling us anything new about the world? Or might it be so overwhelming that it drowns
'reality'?
Alfredo Jaar - The Politics of the Image
As the title of this exhibition
suggests, Alfredo Jaar is also asking questions. The accompanying text states that he is "...
questioning photography when it plays the role of the supposedly objective
journalistic witness." That alone
might have been enough to entice my interest, even though I had no previous
knowledge of Jaar's work, but Sean O'Hagan's article, to which I linked above,
describes it as a 'must-see' show and says that, in his view, Jaar's "...
dissection of the famous White House photograph in which President Obama,
Hillary Clinton and their national security team supposedly watch the mission
to kill Bin Laden live is alone worth making the trip to Arles". I have to say that, had I followed his advice
and gone to Arles just for that purpose, I might have been asking Sean for a
contribution to my fare! This exhibition
underwhelmed me, I'm afraid; and O'Hagan's star attraction amounted to nothing
more than a suggestion that the Presidential team might have been looking at
nothing but a blank screen. I imagine
that many observers will have sensed, from the moment it first appeared, that
this infamous image would have been staged.
Jaar's take on it is a valid and interesting one, but it hardly feels
radical in the world of art photography in 2013 - not to me anyway (and
Stezaker's collages from B-movie stills play with just the same idea). And I think this was my problem with most of
this exhibition. There was nothing at
all wrong with the message, nothing wrong with the questions being asked, and I
certainly mean no disrespect to a well-established artist such as Alfredo Jaar,
but I felt to be in a kind of 'time-shift' back to the eighties. Whilst the Tillmans work was very definitely
'now', the Jaar exhibition feels like 'then', and as such, it lost some of its
relevance and currency - to my view, at least.
Replacing a series of images of the Rwandan conflict with textual
descriptions of the images and where they were taken - in French - is all very
well, and makes a point, of course. But
I for one wasn't in a position to read them - having limited French - so it
could just as effectively be making a point about the limitations of language
as about the limitations of imagery. Surely, also,
the 'Politics of the Image' is a much more complex issue today, with the
ever-increasing digital, internet-based imagery of the 'citizen journalist'
with i-Phone, for example, and this exhibition seemed to be rooted in a
slightly outdated question, with little or no reference to 'today'. My reaction is, of course, partially derived
from my sense that O'Hagan 'oversold' it - but I remain underwhelmed.
Could also be, I guess, that it was
very, very hot that day, and there was no air-conditioning in the Eglise des
Frères-Prêcheurs!!
Gilbert Garcin
Again, I had no knowledge of Garcin
before my preparation and planning for the Arles visit, but I was immediately
attracted to the prospect at a personal level.
He did not take up photography until he was 65, and he is now 84. So - there is hope for all of us!! Various publications and exhibitions have
followed along the way, but this is a big exhibition, covering a large amount
of his work from the last eighteen years.
His approach has been a relatively simple, but powerful one. On a more or less weekly basis, he produces a
photo-montage, black & white image, featuring himself (and sometimes his
wife), as a character called 'Mister G', something akin to Jacques Tati's
Monsieur Hulot, or Alfred Hitchcock appearing, briefly, as himself, in his own
movies. Here are the accompanying notes; and her is a link to his website -
http://www.gilbert-garcin.com/.
This, to use a colloquialism, was 'right up my street'. The montages involve all manner of ordinary
objects - string, tape, ink, a dandelion - together with 'Mister G',
manipulated into strange, imaginary scenes and landscapes, which, when combined
with a thoughtful titles, present the viewer with wry comments or questions
about life. They are visually
interesting, whimsical, sometimes 'laugh-out-loud' funny, but also strongly
observational, thought-provoking, even philosophical - all in a very engagingly
human and personal way. If I have said
that Tillmans exhibition felt like a 'now' and Jaar made me feel like 'then',
Garcin is 'always'. It is timeless. The presentation is simple - smallish, framed
prints, and lots of them - but the impact is strong, and I thoroughly enjoyed
it. The montage angle interested me,
too, in the context of the direction I'm taking with Assignment Five, and (most
unusually for me) I have to say that the black & white is perfect for these
images, adding to the feeling of timelessness.
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