photography
Photo Festival Arles: From Wim Wenders to Agnes Varda
Wim Wenders is not only a director, but also a photographer
© Michel Euler/AP/dpa
The festival is the largest of its kind. The works of more than 100 photographers can be seen in 40 exhibitions.
Dennis Hopper lies on a pool table and drops Polaroid photographs on him. The excerpt is from “The American Friend” (1977) by Wim Wenders. The German filmmaker and photographer is one of the artists present at this year’s Photo festival “Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles”, which is considered the largest of its kind in the world. Under the title “Mes amis Polaroid” (My friends, the Polaroids), Wenders’ fascination with instant photos is illustrated.
More than 40 exhibitions by more than 100 photographers, including big names such as Agnes Varda and Diane Arbus, can be seen in the southern French city until September 24th. The New Yorker Saul Leiter (1923-2013), one of the leading pioneers of color photography, who saw himself as a painter for a long time, can be rediscovered.
One of the exhibitions leads into the cryptoportics, subterranean galleries of the former forum of the ancient city. They serve as a unique backdrop for French photographer Juliette Agnel’s series of images of the prehistoric caves of Arcy-sur-Cure in the Yonne department of north-eastern France.
Eva Nielsen captures optical and hydrogeological phenomena in her exhibition “Insolare”, which she implements technically through solar radiation. The festival, founded in 1970, has been directed by the German art historian Christoph Wiesner since September 2020.