The Rise of the Archive

As a meeting place for the exhibition, discussion and promotion of contemporary photography, The Rencontres d’Arles remains one of Europe’s largest and most significant photography festivals. This year’s festival marks the departure of current director François Hébel and with this, uncertainty as to the scale and vision of next year’s festival. This year however, one of the festival’s most interesting aspects is a strong focus on both the collection and the theme of organization. This interest splits itself broadly into two strands of enquiry: an exploration of the role of vernacular in photography and a parallel study of typologies in 20th century photography. At Espace Van Gogh, ‘The Walther Collection: Typology, Taxonomy and Seriality’ presents a stunning array of photographers who have worked with the serial image, from Eadweard Muybridge, to August Sander, Karl Blossfeldt, Bernd and Hilla Becker and Guy Tillim. This is a must see exhibition
At the Palais de l’Archeveché, American collector WM Hunt shows presents a large series of photographs from his collection of photography all of which represent the crowd in its various forms. From the stunning panoramic image of a 1922 group welcoming the arrival of a first train to the east coast of America, (illus) to a wall of images depicting political rallies, army divisions, school groups and church officials, this exhibition also presents a history of masculinities. All of the images are pre-1950, with women making rare appearances assembly of dancing troupes or contestants in bathing beauty parades). It’s a fascinating collection.
Rather than harking back to the traditional and to the past, Hunt’s collection (and the various collections at Arles this year) signal a need to re-examine the role of the vernacular in a digital age. Photography’s status is quickly changing, and there is a growing awareness in the importance of finding new ways to understand the medium post-internet. These themes are directly picked up by French artists Mazaccio and Drowilal, winners of the 2013 third BMW Photographic Residency at the Musée Nicéphore Niepce. At Rencontres they present a playful expression of the role of photography with their exhibition Wild Style. Here, everything online is up for grabs and images can be re-contextualized, doctored, blown up, made into sculptures, sampled, re-sampled and re-contextualized at will. The result is a witty montage of ideas that aims to explore new taxonomies, logic and processes for the selection and discussion of photography.
Finally, it was great to see Kechun Yang’s project Yellow River win the Discovery Award for emerging photographers this year at Arles. I saw Yellow River in part at Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow last year and it is good to see the project here in its entirety. His quiet and memorable images are a stand out at this year’s Rencontres. Another must-see.
There are still places on the OCA study visit to Arles in September
Wendy McMurdo’s exhibition Digital Play – collected works (1995-2012) is at Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow until 17 August.
Photo: W.M Hunt Collection, Palais Palais de l’Archeveché