"It may seem paradoxical that, in the spirit of discovery, the Rencontres d'Arles proposes a radically black and white vista in 2013.........
What place does black and white photography still hold today? Realism or fiction, poetry, abstraction or pure nostalgia?
By deciding to radically dedicate the 2013 edition to this aesthetic form, genuine pearls are offered to us: discoveries of course, but also works by renowned artists that have never been shown until now, along with treasures from the past. Many of these exhibitions are genuine events, in the form of conceptual installations, classic prints and, it goes without saying, a few exceptions in colour.
Those who've known the period when greys reigned supreme will see that the freedom of genres, often advocated in Arles, allows a black and white programme that is different from what it would have been twenty years ago....."
I suppose the key paragraph in this selective quote is the third one. Who could not fail to be excited by such a prospect? Whose expectations could not be raised by such promises? Unfortunately the reality was far from the promise. There were very few "genuine pearls"; there were "discoveries" but whether they were worth the effort of making the discovery remains open to question; and "treasures from the past" seems to be the opportunity to present material that in some cases dated back to the 1930's. How these help to understand where black and white photography is today or where it may be in the future was not immediately evident. [I would like to stress that many of the images presented as "treasures of the past" were very good or even better but I would suggest that they were not representative of where black and white photography is today indeed how could they be. Certainly they could have been a significant part of a black and white programme of twenty years ago.]
Perhaps I should have taken more notice of the final part of that paragraph "....it goes without saying, a few exceptions in colour". It depends what is meant by "a few". Of the 28 photographers exhibited in the main sections of 'Them'; 'Myself'; 'There"; and 'Album', 15 of them (I have unfairly lumped together the 12 photographers who were responsible for the 'Transition' images all bar one in colour) offered black and white images or monochrome whilst the remainder, 13, offered colour images. Hardly what one would call a few. Arles was far from black.
Even this did not fully explain my feeling of unease. The more I thought about what I was experiencing the more I came to realise that there was something Kafkaesque about the whole show. On the surface all seemed well but to the jaundiced eye it was all a facade that attempted to hide that part of the show that was far from that advertised. Too many images failed to live up to their star rating and the whole was less than its parts. Poor lighting where most images suffered from reflection and glare suggested lack of attention to those small details that can make or break a photographic exhibition. Oddly the buildings in which the exhibitions were held were, for me, the hit of the show and I spent almost as much time exploring their charm as I did looking at the photographs.
Why do I feel that Arles is in crisis? There are all the signs of an organisation that is overly bureaucratic and that there are a number of factions that fail to work together. One has only to look at pages 58 & 59 to realise what a very big organisation it has become. None of this bodes well for the future where the need is for a strong CEO who has a minimum number of staff to carry out the task and who has total control over everything. Democracy is not the best way to achieve a great exhibition.
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