Christoph Wiesner, director of Rencontres d’Arles. “I intend to show the female artistic scene in some surprising directions.”

Rencontres d’Arles director Christoph Wiesner compares the festival to a seismographic survey of our time. Photographers, artists and curators who enable us to see the transformation of the world through the places of the city. For this 54^e edition, the key word is “state of consciousness”. This applies to the environment and more broadly to our human condition. Detailed review.

In the video, behind the scenes of the visits of the jury of the 6th photography award Madame Figaro – Arle

Miss Figaro. –What are the main axes of the 2023 plan?
Christopher Wiesner. – There is a section on the relationship between the moving image and the still image, from film to photography, with several approaches, one of which is historical. This is the case of Agnes Varda, who was first an amateur photographer, then a professional, and then became a filmmaker. Here are the contact sheets of the Poin-Court district in Seth, alongside his 1953 childhood film of the same name. We realize the journey, the origin of the film.

And for Wim Wenders.
We focus on his use of Polaroid in the film American friend which for him corresponds to today’s smartphone photos, both visual reminders and locational elements. We are also dedicating an exhibition to Gregory Crewdson. It’s not a movie, but photos of deserted streets with pale lights, imagined as movie scenes. Evening party (2012-2022) paints a portrait of middle America, before the slightly heavy, black, Trumpian letter…

In 2022, a historical exhibition was held at the Red Cross. This year?
Les Rencontres is also a festival for the general public with a wide variety of exhibitions, some of which are historic. I think about … The light of the saints on the pilgrimage that takes place every year in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, where the Roma venerate Saint Sarah. All the great photographers, from Martin Franck to Lucien Clerg through Josef Kudelka, have been there. A mix of photos and folk material. It connects us to the land.

There is also 50years in Liebe’s eyeswhich marks 50newspaper years…
Set free insisted on the role of the photographer, sometimes using it purposefully. It helps push boundaries, like sending a photojournalist on a fashion shoot. This translates to a fresh look, newness. There are many famous images. The most famous, iconic of the fall of the Berlin Wall by Raymond Depardon, with a man on a horse on the wall. The others are symbolic: one from the “yellow vests”, the other during the epidemic. They belong to our collective memory.

Can you explain the movie? Casa Susanna exhibited at Espace Van Gogh?
340 photographs taken in the 1950s and 1960s were found in a New York market in 2004. Men from the gay and straight community cross-dressed in small cabins in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. It is interesting to contextualize. During this period of the Cold War, suspicion of homosexuality meant imprisonment. These men, often married, from the American white class, therefore took the risk of disguising themselves as “respectable” housewives. It’s a very classic and very conservative vision of women, and yet the first transgender network in American LGBTQIA+ history. Director Sébastien Lifschitz has just made a documentary about it.

“You have to find a different hook and approach every year.”

A word on the poster?
When looking for an image to make a wallpaper, you need to find and approach a different hook every year. On this one, Selfie as Cindy, There was a kind of unanimity in the Rencontres team. Finnish photographer Emma Sarpaniemi dressed as Cindy Sherman. There is a game, a rebound. Furthermore, I intend to showcase the female art scene in some surprising directions in each edition.

The exhibition Sisterscapis that the illustration?
Sisterscap brings together different photographers who have been active since the 1980s, several generations of women from the Nordic countries. They look to the postwar welfare state that improved living conditions and promoted careers. Eighteen women question this “Nordic model” of family life, work, colonialism, and the gendered division of tasks.

Meetings give pride of place. What is the Discovery Prize supported by the Roederer Foundation?
It shows ten photographers in the Freres-Prescher church. The Indian commissioner has opened the field for other candidates from half of the South Asian continent. They bring a non-Western view of femininity and society.

Arles meetings, from July 3 to September 24. matches-arles.com

In the video: “My Photo Album” by Jane Fonda.