Nicknamed “little Rome” due to the ancient monuments, Arles is a picturesque town in Provence, noted as part of Vincent van Gogh’s history. But it is also where a particularly special event for all photography enthusiasts has been taking place every summer since the 1970s. The Rencontres d’Arles Festival is a truly unique visual interpretation of a changing world.
The fact that the photographers and curators come from various environments, the immensely rich programme delves into how the medium of photography is changing and what subjects photographers are interested in. But the Festival’s uniqueness lies not only in the great number of exhibitions and the diversity of showcased projects, but also in the spaces they are presented in – from 12th-century chapels and cloisters to 19th-century industrial and contemporary buildings. To get into one of the exhibition spaces, one needs to go through Monoprix, a functioning department store – a perfect example of how the city lives through photography, with the everyday filled with art.
This year’s 56th edition, taking place from July 7 to October 5, is focused on the diversity of cultures, identities, and genders, showcasing projects by artists from Australia to Brazil, North America, and the Caribbean. The projects presented at the festival are set to be in contrast to the image of a world increasingly dominated by nationalism, nihilism, and environmental crises. As such, many works also addressed the subject of diverse bonds shaped by social, cultural, and political dynamics – works by both emerging and established artists. For the latter, these showcases aim to offer a fresh perspective, present a different point of view than before, or supplement it with new discoveries.
Hence, we will take a look at the topic of reinterpretation – a new perspective on photographers who achieved mastery in working with the medium and composing frames (Louis Stettner, Letizia Battaglia) in the past. There are also various ways of working with archives (vernacular photography, Agnès Geoffray, Batia Suter), as well as intimate perspectives, focusing on personal life (Diana Markosian, Jean-Michel Andre). In contrast, there is inspiration from an old photographic project aimed at describing the reality of a particular society (Anna Fox, Karen Knorr). Black humour and irony in the assessment of reality (Kourtney Roy) are not missing, either. While a fresh look at the developing relationship between the world of fashion and photography is provided by an archive with an insight into the figure of Yves Saint Laurent. Also, the theme of the search for identity is developed by Brandon Gercara.
Here’s our carefully curated selection of the artists worth paying attention to, chosen from the rich programme, portraying the very core of the Festival – the language and themes of contemporary photography.
The World of Louis Stettner – Real Lives
Almost ten years after Louis Stettner’s death, the exhibition sheds new light on this American artist’s body of work. Some of the displayed photographs had not been presented before. Stettner is an example of an artist who never stopped perfecting his craft to achieve mastery in black-and-white photography, while observing how the medium was changing and sharing his thoughts on this with the world. Having been very much involved in the debate on the medium, the curators of the exhibition describe his role as a bridge between American street photography and the French humanist vision.
When one was to think about his art, they would immediately see the monochrome photographs of New York and Paris. But it’s also vital to remember that Stettner served as a combat photographer during the Second World War, leaving him with faith in humanity, which can be seen in his work – stunning shots of everyday life, emotions, and resilience in the face of daily hardships. The exhibition in Arles presents all aspects of his work, including a series of photographs of people in the New York subway, Penn Station, and Nancy, the Beat Generation, and his large-format photos of Provence, along with original documents, adding to our knowledge about Stettner’s work. Although his artistic vision, realised through the medium of sculpture and painting, has not been overlooked either.
Working with archives – a panorama of the ordinary life in the twentieth century
In 2005, Marion and Philippe Jacquier founded the Galerie Lumiere des Roses. Over the course of 20 years, fascinated by the mystery and uniqueness of the photos they found, they’ve gathered a huge collection of anonymous, amateur photographs – 10,000 silver prints.
The exhibition – displayed by the Antoine de Galbert Foundation that acquired the collection – features and organises those anonymous photographs, revealing extraordinary imagination, ingenuity, and creativity that knew no limits. Like the ones by a Parisian pharmacist who portrayed his customers with a spy camera in the 1950s, capturing the friendly atmosphere of the dispensary. Or Lucette’s photographs from her solo travels, who, between 1954 and 1977, would bring back home hundreds of pictures, depicting only herself. There’s also the album of the 20-year-old Jean, who documented his brief affair with a woman named Rose in 1930s Paris by photographing the empty spaces of the city used for the lovers’ encounters. All of them depict the extraordinary ideas of amateur photographers, revealing the genius and power of vernacular photography.
Agnès Geoffray – Gestures of resistance and rebellion
A contemporary artist, Agnès Geoffray, presents a different approach to archive work. A collection of photographs and written texts, created in collaboration with Vanessa Desclaux, was compiled as part of research on girls’ schools in Cadillac, Doullens, and Clermont de l’Oise. These institutions, which operated from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, took in girls whose behaviour was inadequate to the imposed social and moral norms – regarded as unable to pursue education and their behaviour as deviant.
Geoffray’s photographs – portraits of fictional female characters – represent gestures of resistance and rebellion. Juxtaposing them with historical documents and archival photographs, the artist encourages us to reconsider the marginalised existence of these girls who were subjected to sanitary, moral, medical and educational control by a regime that could be described as a prison regime. Through such artistic dialogue between the old and the new, Geoffray empowers these young girls lost in the past.
Letizia Battaglia – A story of life in all its complexity
With the exhibition Letizia Battaglia. Always in search of life, the curators decided to take a closer look at the artistic expression of Letizia Battaglia (1935-2022) and her social engagement. Over 100 artefacts, photographs, newspapers, magazines, and books allow visitors to gain a better understanding of the Palermo-born photographer’s mindset.
It could be said that her international recognition began with the prestigious W. Eugene Smith Fund Grant in 1985, which gave her the opportunity to travel around the world. However, to this day, she remains best known for her photographs taken in one particular place – Italy. Her strength and determination allowed her to flourish as a journalist, with the most vital period of her photographic career taking place in the 1970s in Palermo, where she worked for the newspaper L’Ora. Documenting the life of a city overrun by mafia violence, her shots are dominated by drama and chaos. Yet there is also one particular photograph picturing the serene composure of Rosaria Schifani during her husband’s funeral in 1992 – a silent plea to stop the bloodshed.
As such, the exhibition demonstrates Battaglia’s skill and determination in portraying her city and region in all their complexity, showing the difficulties and dignity of its people, their love and joy – from the beauty of young faces and traditional religious celebrations to the poignant reality of living in a mental institution.
Kourtney Roy – Holiday memories
Kourtney Roy’s colourful pieces are only seemingly a record of something pleasant. The reality as seen through her eyes is characterised by grotesque and dark humour. Her project, The Tourist, exhibited in Arles, refers to the way we experience our holidays. The artist uses self-portraits and both a cinematic approach and shots to create a fictional world of a perfect vacation. The intricately constructed frames reveal their fairy-tale fictionality in their details. Most of us enjoy the anticipation and memories of holidays more than the holidays themselves. Perfect photos from our trips play a big role in this. The artist reverses this situation by creating beautiful, colourful photos that reveal the masked reality of holidays that are far from a fairy tale.
Berenice Abbott, Anna Fox & Karen Knorr – A realistic image of American life
Inspired by the journey of a photographer, Berenice Abbott (1898-1991) and her two coworkers, Sara and Damon Gadd, Anna Fox and Karen Knorr went on their own photographic car journey. While Abbott travelled the oldest road in the United States, U.S. ROUTE 1, aiming to show a realistic picture of American life; Fox and Knorr went from Key West to Atlanta, and then from Washington back to Atlanta. Later, they visited New York, Rhode Island, and Providence, Baltimore and Philadelphia, and, finally, Maine, to then come back to Florida.
They initiated their project during Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign. Their photographs depict the consequences of the country’s most conservative policies on the rights of women, minorities, and economically disadvantaged groups, restrictions on gun control, and escalating police brutality. Abbot documented the diversity of communities, landscapes, and architecture. As her project on Route 1 was never published, remaining relatively unknown to this day, Fox and Knorr’s project is an extension and update of the photographic study of America.
Diana Markosian – A journey of a father and daughter, an intimate approach
Father is a very intimate and emotional record of a relationship between a parent and daughter that was suddenly cut short. Diana Markosian shows the attempt at rebuilding the bond with her father, using old photographs and archival documents to study her father’s absence, their reconciliation, and the void left due to their long-term separation.
When Markosian was 7, her mother decided to move to the US with her children, but without her husband. After coming to California, she removed Markosian’s father’s image by cutting him out of family photographs. His absence left Diana Markosian with a deep sense of mystery and confusion. Her father, on the other hand, was left with only a brief note. This is how his search for his children began. The two-sided search eventually resulted in a meeting – Markosian’s project explores what is in between and what has been irretrievably taken away.
Brandon Gercara – Eruptions, tremors
Brandon Gercara, a queer artist-researcher and a graduate of ÉSA Réunion, focuses on the critical analysis of power in the postcolonial context, developing a multidisciplinary practice involving performance, photography, video, and installations.
The artist photographs members of the LGBTQIA+ community on the La Réunion island, a French overseas department located in the Indian Ocean. The created portraits are surrealist and seem to come from a different planet. Gercara says that the works are beyond the socially normalised planet and are testimony to an oppressed community. Mobilising art to transform the island’s social landscape, the artist’s works are necessary eruptions that shake the layers of domination, such as gender, race, and class, which were carried over from colonialism.
Yves Saint Laurent – Establishing an image in the collective imagination
The exhibition at the Luma Arles art centre focused on the relationship between photography and the world of fashion. The curators placed Yves Saint Laurent, the icon of the fashion world, at the centre of their reflections on this topic, as the designer had the ability to observe photographic talent in the people who crossed his path. And thanks to his collaboration with photographers, a record of the evolution of YSL’s work was created, captured by Avedon, Bailey, Beaton, Bourdin, Doisneau, Horst, Issermann, Lartigue, Meerson, Moon, Seidner, and Sieff, among others.
But his designs weren’t the only ones attracting attention, as his personality was often described as nothing short of magnetic. Being then the subject of the photographs himself certainly contributed to the establishment of his image in the collective imagination. The chronologically ordered pictures – from an early 1957 portrait by Irving Penn to the one by Jurgen Teller – are a record of both the passing time and the prevailing image of YSL.
Thanks to the collaboration with the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, the exhibition also features around 200 items from the archives, such as contact sheets, press cuttings, and personal photographs. There’s also a film featuring interviews with photographers and models who had worked with the designer, providing a broader perspective on how much the world of fashion photography has changed.
Batia Suter – The power of the language of architecture
In her project Octahydra, Batia Suter studies the relationship between architecture, memory, and human experience. Pictures of architecture from books and magazines were digitally edited to create a large-format composition. The visual journey presented in an extraordinary location (the underground base of a square which was once surrounded by public buildings of a Roman city) forces the viewer to consider whether the human experience of architecture is universal.
The displayed images overlap, revealing recurring structures of architecture. Its visual language demonstrates how people think about it all. It becomes evident that forms repeat themselves regardless of the time of creation. The need to shape the space – to build – is a deeply rooted human trait. On the one hand, people shape their reality through architecture, and on the other, it is architecture that shapes and dominates man’s place in the world.
The Rencontres d’Arles Festival
July 7 – October 5, 2025
Arles, France
