黑料不打烊

The Rencontres d’Arles is one of the most illustrious photography festivals in the world. Founded in 1970 by Arlesian photographer Lucien Clergue, alongside writer Michel Tournier and historian Jean-Maurice Rouquette, the festival has drawn those with a passion for photography for over fifty years, with 127,000 visitors in 2022. The 2023 Rencontres d’Arles showcased a plethora of talented photographers from past to present, with exhibitions housed in breathtaking spaces across the historic city.

Saul Leiter, Footprints, circa 1950, chromogenic print, 2021, courtesy of the Saul Leiter Foundation, image by the author

Saul Leiter

American photographer and painter Saul Leiter was born in Pittsburgh in 1923. He immersed himself in his chosen medium as a teenager, after being given a camera by his mother at the age of twelve. At the age of twenty-three, he moved to New York City, intent on forging a career as an artist, eventually working for popular magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Esquire. Even though Leiter found the security of a commercial career, he never stopped shooting photography for his own artistic satisfaction, although it was decades before a book of his work was published. He died in 2013 at age 89, sadly at the height of his popularity. Assemblages exhibited a large selection of the artist’s photographs and paintings, most being unpublished. Leiter referred to photographs as “tiny fragments of an unfinished world,” and his work certainly reflects this sentiment. Many of his images possess a voyeuristic quality: a woman walking the snow-covered city streets, shot from the safety of an apartment window; another lies sleeping amongst bedsheets, her reflection in the mirror in focus even though she herself is not. This slightly detached approach is by no means threatening, but serves as a desperate, yet inherently fragile attempt to connect with a humanity that cannot quite be reached.

Wim Wenders, The American Friend himself, courtesy of the artist / Wim Wenders Foundation

Wim Wenders

Director of cult films such as Paris, Texas, and Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders is one of Germany’s most prolific auteurs. Not surprisingly, he is also an avid photographer, with a passion for Polaroids. While working on 1977’s The American Friend, starring Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz, Wenders shot a series of Polaroids for location purposes, as well as of the actors during preparation and in between scenes. The results formed the exhibition My Polaroid Friends. A mix of more candid shots of the actors during the shooting of the film – little snapshots of personality, or shots that are fundamentally more artistic in the traditional sense, such as a seemingly-abandoned mansion, or sets of stairs spiraling downward in a psychologically unsettling manner. Polaroids also feature as part of the plot of the film, with Dennis Hopper’s character shooting a series of self-portraits with a SX-70 as a way to externalize his anguish. The film was originally entitled Framed, but due to Hopper’s powerful presence on set, was changed to what it is known as today. And that presence can certainly be felt in the Polaroids featuring the actor, such as one where Hopper, very much American in his denim jacket and cowboy hat, sits staring out of frame, cigarette slowly burning in hand.

Gregory Crewdson, Morningside Home for Women, Eveningside series, digital pigment print, 2021-2022. Courtesy of the artist

Gregory Crewdson

Contemporary American photographer Gregory Crewdson’s exhibition Eveningside continued the theme of the close ties between film and photography that ran throughout this year’s Rencontres d’Arles. Renowned for the cinematic quality of his images, for the past three decades Crewdson has been producing stunningly haunting photographs that could easily be mistaken for film stills. Eveningside was comprised of three bodies of work, shot between 2012 and 2022, introduced with an earlier series from 1996. Crewdson’s photographs more than poignantly encapsulate the crashing despair that comes with profound loss. Often set against the weathered backdrop of a long-faded American dream, his images often come across as almost nostalgic, until one becomes aware of the darkened undercurrents seething just beneath the surface. Although some are not quite as subtle. Coffins block lonely streets; a gurney sits empty in a backyard while a mourner looks on, helpless, abandoned; a woman arrives at a shelter, standing misplaced in the middle of the street as a taxi drives away into the encroaching mist. A silence-filled beauty permeates Crewdson’s shots, which appeases the visual sense, lulls the viewer into a false sense of security, before they are swept into a personal hell not of their own, but one that feels distinctly familiar.

Saul Leiter, Untitled, courtesy Saul Leiter Foundation

The setting for the Rencontres d’Arles is of huge significance to the tone and personality of the internationally renowned festival. Firstly, the medium was invented in France, so photography’s long history is inextricably tied to the nation. Secondly, the city of Arles is synonymous with art. Van Gogh’s productive but profoundly pothered period that culminated with the slicing of an earlobe and a hospital stay, took place in its wind-swept streets, forever infusing the ancient city with his beautifully tortured presence. The festival has also nurtured such a deep-rooted enthusiasm for photography in the city that the medium has now become synonymous with it. Almost every corner of every street is adorned with prints pasted upon the stone of its walls, some temporary, only there until they are torn off and pocketed by an admirer of the arts, others more permanent. Cameras are constantly retrieved from their bags, and shots snapped off with fervor of the stunning architecture or the rich personality of the Arlesian spirit. For any photographer, whether amateur or professional, or simply anyone with a passion for the medium, the Rencontres d’Arles is truly a festival that cannot be missed, and even though this year’s event is drawing to a close on September 24, there is always next year, and the year after that, for as long as the medium exists, there is no reason for the Rencontres d’Arles to cease operation. It is a true celebration of photography, and the all-encompassing approach that it entails. From film stills to Polaroids, digital images to collage, the richness of photography is there to celebrate and indulge in, for anyone who wishes to make the journey to the Provençal city of Arles during the sun-strewn festival months.

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