{"id":821715,"date":"2026-08-22T04:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T04:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/821715\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T04:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T04:24:11","slug":"at-this-years-rencontres-darles-photography-rethinks-its-centers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/821715\/","title":{"rendered":"At This Year’s Rencontres d’Arles, Photography Rethinks Its Centers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Features<\/a><\/p>\n

The art world at times imagines itself outside politics, or at least agrees on them; the latest edition of the annual festival reveals otherwise.<\/p>\n


\n \"Daniela
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"At
\n Thato Toeba, “civilians I “(2025), collage, glass and wood (photo Mario Todeschini, courtesy the artist and Stevenson, Cape Town \/ Amsterdam; all other photos Daniela Mayer\/Hyperallergic unless noted)<\/p>\n

ARLES, France \u2014 When the 57th Rencontres d\u2019Arles photography festival opened in the second week of July, its 47 exhibitions filled the ancient churches, modern galleries, and unconventional venues of Arles with contemporary photographs, and almost no air conditioning. Sweaty yet jovial visitors moved through Roman and medieval structures and along bustling streets lined with Parisian-priced caf\u00e9s, carrying personal Evian misters and plastic spinning fans, new staples of the European summer in the age of climate crisis. Opening week drew 22,000 people, nearly half the population of Arles, a small French city on the Rh\u00f4ne once home to Vincent Van Gogh, yet everyone appeared to know everyone, or at least to know who everyone was.\u00a0The festival runs through October 4, with a season pass costing \u20ac42 euros.<\/p>\n

More than 115 public events took place over the first week \u2014 artist panels, curator tours, book signings at the Arles Books Fair, an open-air cinema program by the documentary platform T\u00ebnk, sponsored parties that ran into the small hours \u2014 and the majority were free. Some ancillary, unofficial, art-world gatherings required an invitation; the rest simply required knowing where they were happening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have as much pretension as a lot of the other [art] events \u2014 although people who have been coming longer would probably push back on that,\u201d said Perry Shimon, a contributing editor at Autre and curator of Filoxenia: Queer Joy in the Mediterranean, a film and photographic project showcased at the festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"Charlotte Yonga featured in The Best Possible Way to Tell the Truth\u2026 curated by Nadine Hounkpatin<\/p>\n

Director Christoph Wiesner wrote in the catalog that \u201cas everything pushes toward simplification, division and reduction,\u201d the 57th edition of the Rencontres d’Arles would create a space for \u201ccomplexity and attentiveness.\u201d This year, that center space is given over to those whom the Western canon long consigned to its margins \u2014 though the festival itself avoids this vocabulary. <\/p>\n

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